We use a collaborative problem solving technique based on evolutionary computation: human-based genetic algorithm. In order to arrive at better solutions, the algorithm employs mutation, crossover and selection of existing solutions performed by humans. This way the fittest solutions for problems have a chance to evolve.

More precisely, this system collects people's problems and determines their importance. Any kind of problem is welcome. The problems that happen to be at the intersection of interests of many people are treated as important. These problems are presented to people more frequently than other problems. When a human is presented with a problem, it is natural to think of a solution. It often pops up without any effort, though the first solutions might not be working yet. The site collects this input by letting people contribute whatever they have in mind: hints or pieces of solutions. They can copy and modify ideas of others that they see on the same page and that might be relevant. The more frequently a problem is shown, the more attention and human input it acquires. By showing content in different combinations we stimulate creativity of people. You might find this process similar to a brainstorming, except that different people might be in divergent and convergent phases at the same time. Some people generate a diverse set of solutions using crossover/mutation, other people use their judgment to evaluate those solutions concurrently. We use collaborative filtering to discard unfit solutions, while retaining and further evolving better ones. Many people participate in collaborative filtering, forming a social network classifier. Flow of solutions in this network is controlled by the program and optimized to reduce the decision error of the system. As a side effect, we are able to evaluate contribution of every individual in this human-based computation process. We match this contribution by allocating a proportional share of collective attention to the problems posted by the contributor. All these operations proceed in parallel, like a technological process manufacturing solutions: collecting ideas and pieces of solutions, recombining, selecting, enreaching, and delivering them to people who need them. We hope, you will have a chance to contribute and benefit from this process.

Creativity is often inspired by an unsolved problem. Generally, there is no need to be creative if everything goes fine. If something fails and can't be fixed right away by conventional methods, there is a problem. At least one good thing about any problem is that it challenges our creativity. Unsolved problem can cause a lot of stress, but it feels good to finally find a solution.

The problem solving starts from recognizing the existence of a problem. It is often not trivial to define a problem. People say that defining the problem is a half-way to its solution. It might be true on average, but some problems are ill-defined in a way that makes them further from any solution. Once the problem is defined, some people are short of ideas and see no escape from the problem. Others are overwhelmed by too many potential escapes and unsure which way to go. These people have complementary thinking. Divergent thinking increases the number of options, while convergent thinking to decreases it a manageable number. Switching from one mode of thinking to another may not be easy, especially under stress. Most people have biases and there are even those who are locked into one mode. Many people prefer to have 2 to 7 options to choose from and won't feel comfortable when handling too few or too many options. There are people who prefer to have only one good choice because they don't like making decisions. The good thing is that people's biases are often complementary and these can greatly benefit from combining their minds together.

The goal of our project is to make comfortable environment for you to take your decision, if you lack opportunities we will add them, if you have too many of them, we will rank order them based on combined preference of our members, to make your choice more comfortable.

Because it benefits you, in the first place! You will be able to combine your mental power with the power of many other people to solve problems you have in common. This is going to improve your life as well as other peoples' lives (at the end you will benefit from this as well as you will see happier people around you). You will be able to satisfy your curiousity, find good answers to the questions you were wondering about for a long time and those you never happen to ask. You will be aware of the problems many other people are facing right now and be prepared before these problems have a chance to affect you.

Our project has ambitious goals and efficient technology to achieve them. The best way to learn about it is to participate. Joining is easy, there is no fees and no obligations. You don't need to be considered an expert in any area to join us, bring whatever knowledge you have and you'll get more. Two different people always have something useful to learn from each other, here we talk about a thousand people willing to share their knowledge. Together we will make a difference!

This project was created by Alex Kosorukoff, a russian evolutionary computation researcher and entrepreneur. In the beginning of 1998, Alex was experimenting with ideas of combining intelligence of many people using human-based computation (recently this research field is called collective intelligence). He created human-based genetic algorithm to use in Success Formula project he co-founded earlier. This site is one of the first experiments with the new technique. In February 1999, the site became international and moved to 3form.com.

However, most of the ideas that you will find on this site now is the collective product of many people. These ideas are built incrementally, some people suggested their thoughts, some people selected parts of them as interesting, other people recombined these building blocks together, and finally the fittest result was selected based on preferences of many people.

More information about the technique used here (human-based genetic algorithm) can be found at hbga.org.