Help with allocation algorithm

[Cynthia Moore]

I posted a question about this several months ago, but I didn't explain it very well and then I got sidetracked by some family emergencies. Now I need to get this done, so would appreciate any help. Here's the situation. About a year ago, while cleaning out the attic, I found a box of old LP record albums. I haven't had a turntable for 20 years and, figuring that no one listens to LPs anymore, I was about to toss them. Before I did, I posted a message on our neighborhood email group. I got a ton of responses offering to take them and pleading with me not to toss them. I've always had a tendency to leap and then look, so I posted another note offering to collect any other unwanted albums anyone else might have in their attic and then have a yard or garage event to distribute them to those who want them. I got another surprising response. More than a dozen people responded and brought over albums. I now have over 1,000 albums in about 25 banker boxes all over my home office. I need to get these distributed so I can use that space for other junk. 😉 The yard event is out. I have at least 20 "takers" so far. There is no way that I can find a time when they are all available and a couple of them are relatives of neighbors who are not in town. Plus, with 1,000 albums, people would be thumbing through the boxes forever. Much better to have a list that people can peruse at their leisure. I decided to use this opportunity to polish up my database skills and come up with a way to allow each taker to select the albums they want online and then come up with an algorithm to allocate them fairly. I have made some progress. I have the albums in an Access database. I have a Google Sheet derived from that database. I have a way to share that with the neighbors. They can mark the albums that they want. All I need now is the allocation algorithm. My first question is how to set up the Google Sheet. Should I put a checkbox next to each album so that they check the albums they want? I don’t really like this option, because the albums are not equal. Each neighbor will have a different priority for different albums. I need way for them to indicate a preference of one album over another. Next, I thought about letting them rearrange the albums in priority order or give each one a priority number. But there are 1,000 albums. I think that would be difficult to manage. My current thinking is to define a limited number of priorities, like 5 or 10. There would be a box next to each album into which each neighbor could en

[Member_14660942]

1 - I would make people prioritize the records they want - only 1 number, let's say, from 1 to 100. 2 - They would then choose the records they want, in the rank they want. Not allowed to repeat numbers. With that information, I would assign a priority value for each ranking, the higher the priority (1 is highest), the higher this number is. The balancing of these values is going to be a big part on your "justice". I would do a cumulative priority number, and upon collision, the person that asked first for the record would get it. Let's review this, in a slower way: Let's say you use 1 => 400, 2 => 200, 3 => 100, 4 => 80, 5 => 70, 6 => 60 Now we have the first choice round. Everyone gets 400 priority points. Let's say 5 people. But there is a collision. 2 people chose MC Hammer record. The one that asked for it before is going to get it. The other one... well, tough luck. Now, we have the second choice round. Everyone gets 200 priority points. But, the "un-hamnmered" guy now has 600 priority points. Whatever he chose for choice 2, if available, is going to get picked. After that, everyone else can get their choice of number 2, if available. Just repeat until no more records. This should be a fairly fair system - everyone is probably going to be equally pissed... lol... You are seriously underestimating human beings' capacity for being petty - I hope all goes well, but I really think you're going to have some headache.

[englebart]

I like your idea of ppl who ask for unique, uncontested works redeive them, but it should count towards their “credits” or anti-credits. One person could get 20 unique albums. Someone else might get 5. If they both want the same album, I would tie break to the one that had the lowest count. So eventually everyone would even up to 20. If they have the same number of albums allocated, then tie break randomly. Same applies to 3,4,5, etc way tie. Whoever has the least number wins or random break if multiple match. After you run some scenarios, you might try and generate a “win” score for each person that shows how many contested albums they received separately from how many uncontested albums they received. That should give a good feel of how fair that pass was. You can publish the distribution ahead of time, and let the people decide if they want to trade with each other. Finally, put the blame on the program that “your friend” wrote. You have no idea how it works!