Analysis of BountyQuest (I)

This is just going to scratch the surface here, but the Wayback Machine has pretty good records for BountyQuest from 2000 to 2003 when it closed. (In 2006 the domain was parked, with the same image it has now. Kinda weird.) Here's the index.

The central focus is the bounty. Since a bounty seems to correspond 1-1 with a patent, I'm just going to call my central table the "patent". Whether a bounty gets posted or not is immaterial.

The "how to read this page" instructions for a specific bounty basically tell us the table schema that BountyQuest was using. (Incidentally, look at the amounts of money in play here. Staggering.)

BQ used Coolboard.com for a forum provider. The titles and structure of the boards are stored, but not the individual content, sadly.

The submission form is also not archived (it's behind a post button, for some reason - perhaps because it contained the bounty number?)

But at least we know the structure of a bounty at BQ!