Author: Mike Butcher

What NEED does this meet?

Everyone needs electricity. Currently Britain’s energy needs are meet largely through non-renewable means. Electricity generation is also mostly from greenhouse gas-producing plants. This project is designed to reduce our need for grid-networked power, increase self-reliance, reduce carbon emissions, reduce the need for more nuclear power stations and ultimately slow global warming.

What is the APPROACH?

The plan: Produce a web site with data sources on Wind-speed based on postcode, generated from the DTI’s UK Wind Speed Database:
http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/sources/renewables/renewables-explained/wind-energy/page27326.html

The approach: Link ordinary people with simple information on how to produce their own renewable power from their home by putting the data sources and equipment outlets needed into one place.

The idea is that people should be able to plug in their postcode and see if the average annual windspeed at their location would be enough to produce power which could offset their reliance on the national grid and power simple electrical home applicances. Armed with data that their location has the potential to produce “X” amount of electricity and the predicted annual saving this represents, they would then be linked to a range of retail outlets which provide DIY or serviced installation of household wind turbines. In addition links to local authority departments to consult on planning permission and government grants would be useful. (Note: planning restrictions for household wind turbines were recently relaxed in the latest budget).

What are the BENEFITS to people?

This project would bring cheaper power to thousands of homes, reduce annual power bills and thus (if enacted en masse) reduce the need for new nuclear power stations.

What is the COMPETITION?

There are no other services out there that I know of. The idea must win because if it doesn’t Britain wil be condemned to build yet more wasteful and polluting power stations. The simple fact is that people do not know how to reduce their electricity consumption, so they must be encouraged to generate it more locally and take the pressure off the national grid.

What BUDGETS & LOGISTICS are required?

The DTI’s UK Wind Speed Database is provided free:
http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/sources/renewables/renewables-explained/wind-energy/page27326.html

But it currently uses a round-about way of generating postcode data (actually linking here http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?GridConvert? to do this!).

This needs to be done more simply.

Then links need to be generated telling people how much energy their location’s average wind speed could generate and how to apply for government grants for wind power and potential reatilers, such as:

http://www.windtrap.co.uk/Wind_Turbine_Kits/Home_System_Budget.htm

Author: Roy Shearer

What NEED does this meet?

I would like to see a web service for very small communities such as the 7 households that live in my apartment block (or perhaps a street, or one floor of a large apartment block). We need a means of communicating when we all have radically different timescales and lifestyle yet live in very close proximity. We need to build a stronger community, on a micro level.

What is the APPROACH?

The site would be a hub for encouraging social activities and communal caretaking, arranging times to meet, allowing everyone a say on what work should be done, and even donating to a fund for said work. The main problem we have is that finding the time for everyone to meet up is almost impossible, so we need some kind of virtual bulletin board that people can access at leisure from their home. However, the service would also have to be accessible enough to include all households, and include those without internet access somehow. Here in Glasgow, I am aware that there is plenty of intent to form stronger communities at this level, but no one knows how or has the tools to do so.

What are the BENEFITS to people?

I think there may be a need for this all over the world, a simple, accessible micro-community board with very few features, that can successfully translate into some tangible form as well. Small and simple is how I imagine it in order to include everyone equally with the minimum of fuss.
People will benefit from building stronger communities in order that they can participate in improving their immediate environment (probably urban), something that city councils seem to find hard.

What is the COMPETITION?

There are plenty of commmunity/club/society services, but they are far to complex to include the less IT-literate, and do not interact with the physical world at all. We need a service that acknowledges its role a support system for real world communities. Also, existing services are tailored to single person users, making them rather too personal at times for these purposes. My idea would allow people to participate as households rathre than single users.

What BUDGETS & LOGISTICS are required?

The setup of any web service would be very simple, the intersting and challenging part is how the service would be designed to interact with a real world counterpart. This could be as cheap or expensive as you would like, as it could take the form of a community internet access point, or a simple notice board.

Author: Robbie Hoque

What NEED does this meet?

Pledge Faith Action is PledgeBank for individuals from UK faith communities. It’s aimed at those who feel it’s not enough to have a faith, it’s what your faith motivates you to do that really counts. The site is for:

? Persons of faith who want to do something about a civic issue, but want to do it with others as a public expression of their faith, and not feel self-conscious about their motivation in a secular context.

? Persons of faith who are passionate about issues like global poverty, bio-tech, or climate change, but want to do more than just make occasional donations, or receive a newsletter from an Civil Society Organsiation (CSO).

? Persons of faith who feel limited by existing opportunities for civic action in their place of worship, who don’t see their cultural/religious identity as bound up with their local church, mosque, gurdwara, or synagogue, and who’d like to network with others outside of that context.

? Younger persons, alienated from traditional practices, looking for a alternative way to explore what their faith means to them.

What is the APPROACH?

Alongside the capability for site users to set up and sign up to propositions of civic action, the site’s format will aim to discourage exclusivity, facilitate inter-faith activity, and expand real-world local area networking with 3 features:

? A multi-faith user interface:
The site will be experienced as a web space shared by all faiths. The “All Pledges” page will host pledges from all faith groups. The opening page’s RSS feed will feature the latest from the “All Pledges” page. It is envisaged that the prospect of sharing a space with people from other faiths will encourage open-minded users to the site, and discourage individuals with prosthyelitising agendas and exclusive views.

? Site searches via faith group and area of interest:
Users will register their faith group when subscribing, so that site searches for pledges by one particular faith group can be made. This is in order to draw in subscriptions from persons who would normally feel uncomfortable interacting with members of other faith groups. Searches by subject area will then create possibilities for interfaith activity between users with a common interest in a particular issue. For example, a user searching for environmental pledges will bring up a page where she can sign a pledge created by a Muslim or Quaker.

? Local Alerts: Users can sign up to alerts of proposed activities in their postcode area to facilitate more local action.

What are the BENEFITS to people?

As with PledgeBank, the site offers users more opportunities to support, participate in, help realise, encourage, and organise collective civic actions. But whereas the PledgeBank model risks generating transitory networks around issues that come and go, Pledge Faith Action is aimed at social groups that already exist and have a strong cultural interest in sustaining themselves and the communities in which they are embedded. The site, therefore, has the potential to facilitate sustainable real-world networks in two ways:

? Broadening access:
Call to actions in faith communities are usually initiated or mediated by places of worship, religious institutions, and CSOs. The site will make it easier for individuals to initiate and support civic actions autonomously. For example, a churchgoer with a fundraising idea could make an appeal to all the churches within a postcode area rather than just her own, and in doing so develop new relationships with congregations across her locality.

? Exchanging ideas:
Innovations in one locality are potentially transferable to others, due to the geographic dispersal of faith communities with a common identity. The multi-faith format will facilitate the exchange of ideas between faiths. Faith-based CSOs will raise awareness of their campaigns. Younger people can enthuse older persons (and vice versa) as interaction between the generations in places of worship declines.

What is the COMPETITION?

While persons of faith can use PledgeBank or the BBC Action Network, Pledge Faith Action aims to intensify civic activity within and between coherent groups of people who would feel self-conscious about their spiritual motivation in a secular context.

The Year of Living Generously (www.generous.org.uk), established by the Christian music and arts festival Greenbelt, is a known example of a faith-based civic activism web service. However, unlike Pledge Faith Action, users can not author their own propositions, having to choose from a list of suggested activities, and the site does not facilitate networking between members. The PledgeBank model is likely to give Pledge Faith Action a broader and more sustainable appeal.

The web sites of faith-based CSOs can mobilise civic actions, but the particularity of their interests doesn’t serve those who are concerned or excited about a range of issues and activities. Pledge Faith Action will be the only faith-based activism web platform open to all CSO interests, facilitating the exchange of ideas and broadening access.

What BUDGETS & LOGISTICS are required?

Developing Pledge Faith Action will involve:

? Adapting PledgeBank’s source code: remove country registration and translation options; add faith group registration step; change site search criteria; change pledge subject area categories; change web page text.

? Cost of site hosting and maintainance similar to that of PledgeBank’s.

? Cost and logistics of market research and developing/implementing marketing plan. Targets would include religious institutions and representative bodies; faith-based CSOs; student faith groups and educational institutions; faith-based professional associations; places of worship and local faith groups; faith-based web forums and networks.

Author: Peter

What NEED does this meet?

This proposal targets young people that are keen volunteers, ambassadors and/or fundraisers of a particular cause or charity (ie. the college rag / gap year market). It will help them promote their interest/causes, get inspired and network with likeminded individuals.

The project enables an ‘activity hub’ that would be key to sustaining youth’s philanthropic enthusiasm and societal concerns beyond the ‘honeymoon’ years of self discovery. It would also allows participants the opportunity to share their interest with friends and family to inspire in-kind or monetary support, thus furthering their ambition.

What is the APPROACH?

A virtual community, ala myspace.com, that targets young people that are keen volunteers, ambassadors and/or fundraiser of a particular cause or charity.

The aim would be to allow young people that are involved to share their enthusiasm, views and work. On par with online fundraising (www.justgiving.com), participants could setup their own personal page hosting a blog, key events & a message board for people to post encouragement on.

Representing the time rich, money poor youth market (eg. college rag generation), participants could fwd this link to friends or relatives and ask them to support their cause by getting involved, donating, recycling, sending a letter to an MP, etc- similar to event sponsorship but about participants overall interest (eg international development, conservation, etc) rather than a challenge event and not limited to monetary support.

This would also act as great networking tool / source of inspiration as you could search by causes, etc.

What are the BENEFITS to people?

Participants will utilise the site as an activity hub as:
-an outlet to promote views and causes their passionate about
-an opportunity to network with like-minded individuals
-a forum to research a particular interest or concern and see what others are doing
-a tool to promote the cause to friends & relatives to either raise funds, inspire particpation and/or recieve encouragement

What is the COMPETITION?

None that I know of. There is unfortunately an American commerce portal occupying the mycause.com URL, but mycause.org or mycause.co.uk are fair game.

What BUDGETS & LOGISTICS are required?

I’d imagine £30k minimum startup for a good site / promotion. Ongoing monitoring, hosting and upkeep costs in addition.

Promotion would require an initial push to get college / uni intranets to link/promote the site and presence at RAG weeks (could be done by commissioning reps per school to promote it). Charities could also promote it to their involved young people as a way to publicise their efforts.

Once established, I imagine it would have a good viral /grassroots rollout and promote itself.

Adrian

What NEED does this meet?

I want to allow voters in any election to ask questions of the candidates collectively as a “panel”. Essentially, it’s an online version of the BBC’s Question Time/Any Questions but without any limits on the number of questions, who can ask them and what they can ask about.

Each question will have its own page with the candidates’ answers below it. This page will be permanent (permalinked) and therefore will provide a persistent and structured record of what the candidates said during the election.

This can be used for any election, whether it’s for Leader of the Free World or the Hon. Sec. of the Nether Stowey Philately Society. It’d be useful for political elections, trades unions, student unions, school councils, small clubs and societies. While there would be the definitive hosted version on the central website, as an open source app it could be installed on anyone’s website, including in a members’ section of a membership site or behind a firewall, eg. on a school or organisation intranet where you wouldn’t want it to be public.

What is the APPROACH?

Each election is set up by anyone that chooses to do so (hereafter, the Election Administrator or EA). They’re responsible for filling in the details of the election (when, where to vote, who can vote) and inviting the candidates by email. No attempt is made to get definitive election/candidate info from anywhere. It’s down to the EA. Therefore, the site can be used by anyone and scales up nicely. A location/polling date search discourages people from setting up multiple instances for the same election, unaware that someone has already done it.

Each election gets its own permanent URL.

Anyone (but hopefully an eligible voter) can ask a question to the panel of candidates. There is no limit to the number of questions. Qs are tagged by the questioner (keywords/folksonomy) and there is a tag cloud so that voters can find questions on the subjects that interest them. While this puts more work on the questioners, it avoids the possible bias of the EA defining a set of categories. Once a question has been asked, it becomes visible on the Qs awaiting Answers page, to discourage people from asking similar Qs.

The candidates’ answers to questions are “sealed bids”. There is a time limit on each Q, after which all answers are revealed. Hopefully, this will encourage the cands to answer positively about their plans and intentions rather than attack their opponents or their opponents’ answers. There is no compulsion on cands to answer every Q, but their answer stats will be visible on their profile page and the candidate list page.

Cands can use minimal blogging features in their answers, such as inline links and blockquotes.

The EA and candidates must register with the site. The voters/questioners can ask without registering, but must verify their mobile phone number. This is more reliable than email addresses and it’s harder to have multiple ones. It also permits participation by that significant slice of society that has a mobile phone but not an email address. (Look it up!)

Each cand has a profile page with their contact info, photo, affiliation, answers to Qs and list of Qs that they didn’t answer (because they missed the deadline or declined to.)

Voters can subscribe to an election’s feed (Qs & As) by verified email or just grab its RSS feed.

Voters can find other elections by a postcode/radius search (in the UK) or view them on the ubiquitous Google Map. Optionally, they can also find elections that have ended (advanced search).

EAs can link up with the EAs of other elections to form a group of related elections. Eg. all the constituencies in a general election, the wards within a local authority, or the various officers of an organisation. All elections in a group must have the same voting date(s).

Qs are moderated by the cands, not the EA. If a majority of cands hit the Stupid Question button on the answering form, it gets transferred to the Stupid Questions page and is public for everyone to see, but no answers can be submitted. This prevents offensive and impertinent questions cluttering the real answers pages and filters spam, but without the possibility of EA bias. Stupid Questions are not counted towards the cands’ answering stats. Perhaps have a “three strikes and you’re out” system for blocking phone numbers of people that submit too many stupid questions, at least for a period of time. This would work site-wide, not per election.

When an election ends, the EA can post the results and this is sent out to the email/RSS feed. They should also post a link to an official webpage with the certified results.

There needs to be provision for cands that withdraw or are disqualified, possibly for multi-stage elections and combined tickets (eg. leader/deputy leader).

Provide a feature for null cands (none of the above, reopen nominations) in the cands’ list and election results.

Anyone can sign up for an email/text message voting reminder. No point talking about it unless you actually go and vote!

Optionally, it could have a calendar for meetings/hustings related to this election.

What are the BENEFITS to people?

For voters:

– get answers to specific questions
– find what the cands think on your favourite topics
– permanent record after the election has ended, so you can hold the winners accountable
– get a reminder to vote!
– find cand info in one place
– keep up to date on the campaign issues without it being filtered through news media or coming direct from the cands’ PR people

For candidates:

– answer the questions the voters are really asking, not the ones you’d like them to ask
– connect directly with the electorate
– answer more questions than you could at meetings (and in your own time)
– see clearly what the opposition is saying
– direct voters to your website

For society:

Hopefully it would restore some small amount of faith in democracy in the broadest sense by putting candidates and voters together in a way that respects the candidates’ time and the voters concerns, without the filtering and bias of news media and PR.

It must be emphasised that this could and should be used for any election, not just official or political ones.

What is the COMPETITION?

I’d love to hear about it if there’s anything suitable already available. A generic forum app really doesn’t cut it, as candidates don’t have all day to respond on long threads to dozens or hundreds of voters.

What BUDGETS & LOGISTICS are required?

It’s not difficult, just a conventional web app with no fancy graphics or user interface magic needed. It’s medium-sized and not complex in any way. Costing it would be the same as for any similar project, ie. if it’s for a client, estimate the time needed and double it; if it’s for yourself, estimate the time needed and halve it. 😉

The only bit that incurs extra expense on top of standard hosting costs is sending the text messages. You could have a donations page on each election where people could transfer an amount from Paypal. Donations would be pooled for the whole site. £5 is a lot of text messages at bulk rates.

If people are going to (optionally) set this up on their own servers, you probably want to write an abstraction layer for bulk SMS sending services so that people can choose one that suits them. Maybe one already exists. It’d be great as a standalone open-source library.

Author: Hugh Parker

What NEED does this meet?

There’s a local election tomorrow and I’ve been unable to read anything about my candidates on the web, other than their names and parties. I have a big problem with voting on party lines in local elections, and I’d like access to some information that would make a better decision possible. I would like, for the next election, somewhere to read a statement from each candidate, maybe read their answers to some questions, and to find their contact details.

What is the APPROACH?

The site could scrape the names of the candidates from election websites, like http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/elections.bcc (or possibly you guys have access to a better source of that data). It would then be possible for each candidate to submit an entry which I could then read by putting in my postcode, writetothem.com style.

What are the BENEFITS to people?

Access to some information that will make it easier to vote in an informed way.

What is the COMPETITION?

There’s no similar service out there that I know of. One of my candidates has been arrested for electoral fraud, and it’s hard enough to find even anything referring to that on the web.

What BUDGETS & LOGISTICS are required?

I think the major hassle would be verifying that submissions of information were from the candidate as claimed. I think the easiest way to do this would be to create an emailed ‘invitation’ to them to edit their page – “click this link to edit your entry”. We could then invite the general public to submit an email address for a candidate – “invite your candidate to post a statement”. Verifying that those email addresses are owned by the claimed owner would be difficult. An alternative would be to ask local party secretaries for a list of email addresses.

Author: Nick Gulliford

What NEED does this meet?

All the people who are frustrated by HMG, local authorities and government sponsored agencies when they won’t provide information that should be publicly available. It would make it much easier to complain to the Information Commissioner if it were possible to produce chapter and verse illustrating who precisely is being uncooperative.

What is the APPROACH?

The ONS [Office for National Statistics] – which Gordon Brown says he is going to make independent of HMG – is the obvious publisher for public information. In many cases it does a superb job. However, there is a catch; the ONS says it does not ‘own’ the data. Much of it is obtained from government departments, local authorities, health trusts etc. The plan is for your new web site to list the communications directors of all the agencies that have information which should be in the public domain and make it easy for members of the public to ask them and the ONS to publish it routinely, if it is not already available.

What are the BENEFITS to people?

It will make it easier to complain to the Information Commissioner if the relevant procedures are built into the system. The recipients of requests for information are more likely to comply if they know that failure on their part to do so is likely to mean they will have to contend with a well presented case to the Information Commissioner.

What is the COMPETITION?

The current system of trying to get your MP to ask a question in the House of Commons or to write to a Minister is really only suitable for the very determined. The idea of having an ‘Essential Information Request’ service that is inexpensive to operate and publicly accessible would soon become very popular, possibly even to MPs, but certainly to their constituents.

What BUDGETS & LOGISTICS are required?

To someone with access to the relevant names and addresses and to the sort of software you have already developed, my guess is that it would be in the £50,000 to £100,000 range. Conceptually it is quite simple and fits well with your current product range.

Author: Kathy Robinson

What NEED does this meet?

My programme uses sign language to raise reading, writing and spelling levels of hearing children.

LITERACY. LITERACY. LITERACY

What is the APPROACH?

The programme is already embedded in homes and schools throughout the U.K. There is no programme in the UK that trains hearing parents and teachers to use sign language with hearing children. It consists of a range of award-winning training materials for parents, teachers and children, all of which can be seen on www.signsforsuccess.co.uk

DVD’s, books, toys, CD-Roms …

What are the BENEFITS to people?

The programme is phenomenally successful. It has just won a national award for changing the lives of deaf and hearing children. Children love signing. It is fun, motivating, helps them focus and they learn at the speed of light and never forget. Schools now use Fingerspelling Phonics instead of the Synthetic phonics the government supports.

British Sign Language is a living language and impacts the brain in a way that a “synthetic” invented system can never do.

What is the COMPETITION?

There is no other programme that uses sign language with mainstream hearing teachers and hearing children. Itis ground-breaking and has to be seen to be believed the effect on children. I have a film of the programme. It is supported by a range of LEA’s and national organisations

What BUDGETS & LOGISTICS are required?

Due to parents enthusiasm the programme has now been expanded to the 0 – 3’s. By next month, I will have a Signing Fun child development long distance course complete which will train nursery nurses, childminders, nannies, parents etc to use sign language for early communication

This now means that my website must be updated to include the course, to provide signing clips where users can LEARN ONE SIGN A DAY – AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE, where the materials can be purchased and support given, where the materials and information are organised into those working with the 0 – 3’s and those working with the 3 – 6’s, where there is a Community room and so on …

Author: Tom Raggett

What NEED does this meet?

I have used postal voting for council elections in the hope that it would prompt me to check out each and every name on the ballot, rather than voting solely along party lines (or on who actually lives in my ward).

I have tried to check out councillor and prospective candidate information, and there is little easily available on the internet.

I would like to be able to make a more informed decision.

What is the APPROACH?

Use the “Hear from your MP” approach to send prospective candidates (and/or the relevant council and political party) “We want to know more” messages. They can then respond with links to the relevant website or statement. There is a verification / validation issue, but I believe it is solvable.

It will take some time, but the candidates will get the message that they have an obvious and necessary channel to engaged voters that doesn’t involve turning up on the doorstep.

What are the BENEFITS to people?

This will benefit those voters who want more information about council elections.

It will help to raise participation levels (only 25% in some London boroughs).

It will increase the ability of independent candidates to compete in local elections.

What is the COMPETITION?

There are services for elected councillors, but none for prospective candidates.

http://www.councillorsuk.co.uk/councillors.asp
http://www.councillor.gov.uk/

And a “vote against Iraq” option
http://www.strategicvoter.org.uk/

What BUDGETS & LOGISTICS are required?

The councillor system could use parts of the same infrastructure as Hear From Your MP / Write to Them.

Volume of councillors is large – 21,000 in England and Wales (plus 10,000 parish councils, if you’re tempted).

There are issues with verifying that the right candidate / councillor can write out to the relevant list, as well as getting messages to the candidates (who won’t all have email or fax, necessarily). I’m guessing that the local council and political party(ies) will have the candidate information, so the system can use these as a driver.

My thinking is that a max-once a day email limit and report abuse of the system option will help control parties / candidates who think this could be used for spam.

Author: Mark Griffith

What NEED does this meet?

Almost every imaginative proposal is hampered by lack of start-up capital. This site will solve a large part of that problem.

Governments’ monopoly on creating currencies is one of the least questioned parts of today’s world, though it is only a couple of centuries old. This monopoly is now crumbling in the face of challenges as diverse as air miles, local barter networks, and the increasing power of non-bank corporations to create credit. Although it is crumbling, almost no-one outside the financial sector knows or cares about the new directions money is taking, and the resulting opportunities for people to change their own lives and communities for the better.

‘Create your own currency’ would help volunteers to create new currencies for their own use among each other, and thus co-ordinate their own efforts and so realise projects that otherwise are frustrated by lack of [the national type of] money.

What is the APPROACH?

By allowing visitors to quickly and easily create a small currency of their own with a group of participating friends, using group sign-up techniques already pioneered by PledgeBank, the site would gain substantial publicity for its message.

People would learn about the pros and cons of having your own currency by doing it, not just reading about it.

Most distinctively, all the created currencies would have time limits after which units will cease to have value. Technically, this is called ‘demurrage’: the site will effectively create disposable currencies. If they work, they will last. If the group does not use them, they will naturally wither and disappear.

What are the BENEFITS to people?

Allowing people to create their own currencies lets them start up their own initiatives without having to borrow money or pay interest on that loan.

Many NGOs and pressure groups survive on what economists call ‘self-exploitation’, with members mucking in, doing huge amounts of unpriced work, and, inevitably, some contributing more and getting less than others, so sooner or later dropping out of the project.

Many such groups are idealistic and feel that pricing barter somehow sullies their mission. Yet others have succeeded in pursuing their goals by pricing work in orthodox, national [and by definition, scarce] money.

Very few people realise that they are not limited to these two choices, but that priced barter can offer advantages from both worlds.

What is the COMPETITION?

There is a rich world of priced barter schemes already, mostly [very sensibly] tied to local communities or online interest groups. This site would do something different, by allowing groups of people [a minimum size of group would have to sign up, probably fifty] to create a barter-pricing instrument of their choice which they can use to co-ordinate their joint efforts for a limited time on a specific project, then – if they so wish – allowing it to wither.

A site which creates disposable currencies online to order will attract considerable publicity, and inform a larger community who have not previously heard of, never mind been part of, the established barter networks. Since the established barter currencies’ weakest point is their lack of time-decay [this encourages hoarding rather than spending, and leads effectively to a miniature “recession” in which the whole mini-economy grinds to a halt], the disposability of this site’s minicurrencies will – paradoxically – ensure the success of many of them.

What BUDGETS & LOGISTICS are required?

The site will create a database of common transactions for each new currency, charging negative interest [demurrage] on unused accounts over time, thus encouraging all taking part to spend their currency units as soon as they get them.

It therefore needs space for several different scalable currencies, most of which will stay within the bounds of the original founding fifty or a hundred members, though some currencies will grow substantially. If it helps planning, the site could host a limited number of currencies, such as fifty, creating a new one to demand when a place opens up from an old one shutting down.

All currencies should declare at the outset the right of the site owner to use a small percentage of the charged demurrage for maintaining and paying for the site. If [for example] all accounts, including that of the site hosts, decay at a rate 1/60th of the original balance per day the balance is unused, then 1/3 of this could accrue to the site hosts [whose account is also decaying over time of course], who would spend it on the services and goods being offered online within the currency, if necessary reselling those services to get national money to pay maintenance programmers or hosting charges.

The site should be hosted outside the European Union or the United States to frustrate legal challenges on the grounds of tax evasion. Demurrage might also be of crucial importance in preventing these currencies from being defined as money in the legal sense.

I need help in pricing the initial programmer/developer work.