Think twice / 07
The Appeal
Your rule fits on a noticeboard. The people it affects do not.
How to play
You run a workshop with four seats and six applicants. You choose requirements, hear appeals and decide whether to amend a rule or allow an exception. Your task is to defend an allocation after seeing both who gets a seat and what people must spend to qualify. Choose a priority; there is no official winning policy.
- Press Apply this rule to try the starting requirements. Read the six records and choose what you want to protect: first access, evidence and time to participate, or less work just to qualify.
- Open Hear Noor's appeal. Compare Noor with Pax, then try a general amendment or one exception seat. Apply the policy and inspect who moves in or out, including Sol.
- Press Publish & let applicants respond and read the before-and-after allocation and hours spent. Use Keep this comparison, then try another policy. Finish with two saved comparisons and a reason you would defend one, including a cost borne by someone it leaves out.
What to notice
Noor and Pax may tick the same boxes, yet a new qualification costs them different amounts of time. A rule can treat their forms identically while affecting their lives differently. An exception seems kinder, until you remember the applicants whose stories you never heard.
You have six applicants and four seats. Apply the starting policy, inspect who qualifies and who actually gets a seat, then hear an appeal or change the requirements. Publish a policy to see how applicants respond. Some may spend time earning a new qualification and still receive no seat.
Gerald Leventhal's work on fairness asked us to examine procedures as well as final allocations. Consistency, accurate information and a chance to correct a decision can all matter, yet they can pull in different directions. Hiring, admissions and professional qualifications face similar tensions when a requirement rewards access to time and resources as well as ability.
These six people are authored characters, not evidence about real applicants or a universal fairness score. Compare the policy before and after an appeal. Who qualified, who received a place, and who paid a cost just to qualify? Would you change the rule for everyone or use an exception, and whose story might still be missing?
Read more: Gerald Leventhal, What Should Be Done with Equity Theory?.
The noticeboard
Who can apply?
A sample means a project was submitted. This model does not grade its quality. The badge is a fictional course, not a safety qualification.
Ties always use the shown application order. First workshop means no previous access, not less ability.
No exception seat.
Loading the local desk.
Current seat allocation
Changing a control creates a draft. Apply it to update the desk. Publishing always starts from the original six records, so replaying never charges anyone twice.
Optional priorities & saved comparisons
Applications & appeals
Original applicationsOne exception reserves a seat before the queue, even if requirements are missing. It replaces any earlier exception. You can also amend the noticeboard for everyone.
The full applications
In application order. Every story, appeal, possible action and spare-hour limit is available from the start.
The rule became something to respond to
| Applicant | Action before intake | Before | After |
|---|
People act to qualify, even if the queue will leave them waiting. This is a stated decision rule, not a claim that people always behave this way.
Your policy notebook
Up to six comparisons from this visit. Goals guide what you inspect; they do not change the applicants or turn these counts into a fairness score.
| Policy and seats before → after | First workshop seats | Samples / both sessions | Hours spent qualifying |
|---|
Rules & model
The four-seat limit
Six fictional people apply for one workshop. Every selected requirement must be met. Unchecking everything makes everyone eligible. Eligible applicants get up to four seats in application order: Kit, Bea, Noor, Owen, Pax, Sol. The alternative order puts people without previous workshop access first, then uses that same application order within each group. Unfilled seats stay empty. Qualifying and getting a seat are different things.
Appeals and your discretion
Every applicant’s appeal is written in advance and can be read from their record. Hearing it does not alter a fact. The three requirement boxes cannot distinguish Noor from Pax; their records contain context that those boxes do not encode. You may change the rule for everyone or reserve one exception seat for any applicant. That person gets a seat first, regardless of requirements; the remaining three use the normal rule and order. No extra seat is created. Removing an exception returns the seat to the normal allocation.
What happens after publication
Publishing re-evaluates the original six applications under your applied rule, including its exception and queue. A person who already qualifies or holds the exception does nothing. Otherwise they try their one listed action if it fits their spare-hour limit and would meet all missing requirements. Nobody takes an ineffective action, borrows time, combines actions or changes queue position. Costs are hours, not money. The action changes just the stated fact. The model does not invent improved ability.
Bea can create a sample in four hours and has four hours. Noor’s badge takes six hours but only two are available. Owen can arrange a shift swap in one hour and has two hours. Pax can complete the six-hour badge with eight hours available. Kit and Sol have no listed action. These options are visible before you publish. Everyone acts for eligibility without anticipating the final queue, so someone may spend hours and still miss a seat. “Hours spent” includes everyone, with unsuccessful allocation costs identified separately.
Comparisons, goals and limits
Apply returns to original records. Publish calculates a single response round from those originals, never from earlier transformed records. The notebook stores before and after for the applied rule, without inventing a second intake. First workshop seats count people without prior access; samples count submitted work; attendance counts stated availability. None measures talent, deservingness, discrimination or overall fairness. Your goal highlights a description, without changing any calculation. There is no secret best policy, automatic moral grade or generated dialogue.
This is an original authored thought experiment, not a reconstruction of a historical study or a validated model of real admissions. It leaves out real learning, trust, changing circumstances and many possible policies. All calculation is on this page, with no account, upload, timer or saved data after you leave.