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On Meta.Chemistry.SE there is a post explaining synthesis golf the goal of which is to encourage participation on Chem.SE. I think that AskPatents could benefit from a similar challenge.

My vision would be to take ordinary everyday objects that predate any patent system and challenge the community to write a utility claim or two for the object (e.g. forks, vases, wheels, anything else in the ancient world). The community could comment and vote on the strength and weakness of claims and language. Any reputation for the question would be rewarded to answers in the form of a bounty.

Thoughts, comments, input, suggestions, interest?

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This type of extra curricular activity can at times be an interesting way to help round out an otherwise healthy and robust community. But when you have very little activity around the core subject itself, augmenting the content with this type of game risks obfuscating the purpose for which this site was created. Sites are defined by whatever appears on their front page, so I'm just not inclined to say that if the intended premise of this site does not work, let's turn it into something else entirely.

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First of all, I think this would be a big benefit for every (beginner-)patent-person involved. It's hard to get feedback in the patent world and even if you get feedback, the people involved are of a small group. However, to get that benefit, there have to be at least some people willing to invest time and knowledge. This could be a way to attract some patent professionals that want to get feedback on their work and improve themselves, therefore actually increasing the user-base of this site.

Our site is small, so I don't see any harm in trying this in a small test run (read: 1 question at first).

However, before trying it we should establish that there would be at least a handful of participants.

Please upvote this answer if you'd actually participate.

If this answer ever reaches 5 upvotes I think we could start a single meta question with an example and see where it leads.

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