Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Game theory/Archive 2

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This page is an Archive of the discussions from WikiProject Game theory talk page (Discussion page). (January 2006 - December 2006) - Please Do not edit!

More topics

Don't forget Strategy Stealing Argument, Connect6, Combinatorial Game Theory, game complexity, and topics related to those. 70.111.224.85 20:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Mainpage

Hi all - I hope that everyone's new year has gone well so far. I have officially requested that Game theory be posted on the main page. No need to vote for it, but could everyone look over the brief summary I wrote and make any corrections or additions they think are appropriate? Thanks! --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 00:21, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

hey Kevin. I suggest deleting the last sentence, the one about game shows (doesn't pay it's rent to the degree that the rest do). The first sentence is the only other one I'd change. I'm not certain how best to do it, but I think it doesn't quite get across the idea that each player's payoffs depend both on the actions they choose and also the actions other players choose. It reads a bit like maximization is a simple optimization without the strategic problem... Not easy to fix. Pete.Hurd 07:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I was too slow I'm afraid! They have just now scheduled Game theory for the Mainpage tomorrow! (For those of us in North America that will happen midday-evening tomorrow.) They usually schedule things much further in advance, something must have happened to the previously scheduled article. Anyway, I think it would be in bad form to change the summary now that its so close (as Raul may not get a chance to approve the changes and he is the czar of the mainpage). Anyway, time to hunker down for the hordes of "Poop" edits. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 04:23, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

absorbing pre-existing articles

So what do you think about slapping Category:Game theory onto the unified neutral theory of biodiversity article? --DavidCary 01:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see where the two are related. Pete.Hurd 06:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Nor do I. Could you elaborate on how you think they share similarities for a category insertion..? -Zero^Talk 18:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Template

Hey Kevin, the game theory template has a field Equilibrium concepts and another Types of equilibria which seem very close to the same thing; eg. "Pooling equilibrium" and "Separating equilibrium" are in one and "Bayes-Nash equilibrium" and "Evolutionarily stable strategy" are in the other. I suggest merging them into one thing, and maybe creating a new category for "Winner's curse", "Incentive compatible" and whatever else feels like an odd-ball in the new category. Cheers, Pete.Hurd 09:16, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been meaning to do something about that template for some time. I understand the division, I don't think pooling and seperating equilibria are refinements but types of nash eq., i.e. their not supposed to be predictors of play but merely descriptions of solutions. Personally I don't think either are so important as to be listed in the template at all (especially as red links). Anything you think needs to go in? --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 20:02, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I guess I'd delete the Types of equilibria row, maybe add Bishop-Cannings to theorems (it's not done, but at east it's not red), nothing I feel strongly about though. Pete.Hurd 05:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

interwiki

I'm looking for an article on the English Wikipedia to interwiki from, from nl:Gevechtsstrategieën volgens Maynard Smith. I'm not sure which is the correct one. —Ruud 05:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ruud. I'm not totally sure what the page says (I tried google's babelfish trashlation using German to English and it didn't think Dutch was as close to German as I had hoped) but I'm fairly certain that it's a presentation of Maynard Smith's Hawk-Dove model with Retaliator, Prober(?) and other strategists (as presented in Maynard Smith & Price, or Maynard Smith & Parker? I don't have the papers handy). I'm also not really certain what it means to "interwiki", but the material presented on that nl.wikipedia page seems to come closest to the en.wp page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_chicken#Hawk-Dove_game except that the nl.wp page covers aspects of the Hawk-Dove game not in the en.wp page. I'm not sure whether to suggest adding the material to Game_of_chicken#Hawk-Dove_game or to unredirect Hawk-Dove_game from Game_of_chicken and start a new article... Pete.Hurd 05:36, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Interwikiing is adding a link in the artcile on the Dutch Wikipedia to the English Wikipedia (and vica-versa) which shows up in the 'in other languages' box on the left. Your right about what the article in Dutch says, so I've linked nl:Gevechtsstrategieën volgens Maynard Smith and Hawk-Dove game for now. I don't know if these 'combatstratgies according to Maynard Smith' are some notable theory or just a simple example from one of his books, so I won't bother undirecting Hawk-Dove game, unless someone can confirm that it is notable. Cheers —Ruud 06:40, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I speak German, not Dutch, but the two are similar. In German, "vogel" is a bird, so barring this being a differring word between the two, it would seem to refer to the hawk/dove game. Anyone speak dutch?--Scorpion451 22:56, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Dollar auction

Hey guys- I cleaned up the dollar auction article yesterday, but i'm still not sure I'm explaining it clearly. If you can take a look and offer any advice, that would be great. I've also added it to the list of games in game theory. --DDG 21:08, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

It looks great! I just fixed a minor wording thing, but otherwise it seems clear. Thanks a lot! --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 03:22, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Aye nicely done. There's quite a literature on this topic using they keyword "all-pay auction" that might be worth a mention as well. Cheers Pete.Hurd 03:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Political/philosophical uses of game theory

I'm not ready to commit to expanding the sections of Game Theory about uses of game theory by philosophers or scholars of politics, but in case I pick it up someday (or someone else does -- you can dream), does anybody want to tack names, resources, or concepts onto this list? I'm casting a broad net -- rational-choice theory, experimental studies of strategy, and evolutionary psychology all count. Most of the citations below are pulled from the game theory article.

Kenneth Binmore (economist, Game Theory and the Social Contract -- partly an analysis of Rawls's Theory of Justice)

Peter Singer (ethicist, A Darwinian Left -- very brief, tries to apply game theory and evolutionary psychology to leftist politics)

Richard Posner (legal scholar who applies economic reasoning to law)

Edward O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett (sociobiologists who have drawn bundles of conclusions about the origins of religion, sexual morality, etc., with evolutionary game theory lurking in the background)

Robert Axelrod (The Evolution of Cooperation)

Brian Skyrms (The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure, ISBN 0521533929, and Evolution of the Social Contract, ISBN 0521555833)

Elliot Sober, David Sloan Wilson (Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior, ISBN 0674930479)

mutual assured destruction

voting systems

Game Theory and Ethics (has long bibliography)

Richard Bevan Braithwaite, Theory of games as a tool for the moral philosopher.

-- 69.236.168.144 23:58, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Prisoner's_dilemma#Perfectly_Rational

A reader has raised a particula point about the game that I'm not perfectly confident of resolving. Can one of the experts take a look at the matter? Loom91 07:37, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks like this has gone away? Cretog8 (talk) 03:54, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Purification Theorem

I added a new article on Harsanyi's Purification Theorem. Any contributions and or corrections would be helpful. RegardsProfundity06 15:23, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Award

Perhaps someone would like to go and support an award for this wikiproject on the award proposal page? The idea is about to be archived.--evrik 17:40, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

2x2 game template

	Left	Right
Up	0, 0	0, 0
Down	0, 0	0, 0
WikiProject Game theory/Archive 2

Hello all! User:Trialsanderrors has been kind enough to make a very nice template for 2x2 matrices, {{2x2 game}}. I think its really nice, and it hides a lot of the ugly wikicode that I had been using in matrices before. If their are no objections, I think I'll start migrating all our pages to using that. (If its needed I may copy the code to a 3x3 game or some such...) I thought before this happens I ought to get some consensus for its use. I have included it here for reference (using it's defaults). If you want to see it in action check out Battle of the sexes (game theory) or Stag hunt. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 06:03, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Very nice, I've been admiring them, they are a great improvement and migration would be a good thing ... but I was wondering if there was some way to make the "vde" be less visible, or something so that readers don't mistake them for a part of the payoff matrix. I'd go so far as to endorse removing them if it's possible... Pete.Hurd 06:12, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I think you're right, They seem to be invitations to edit the payoff matrix rather than the template. I'd like to keep them in for the moment as long as we're still fine-tuning the formatting, but once we start rolling them out to other articles we should take it out. On copying the code to 3x3 games, I believe this can be done with parser functions and IF statements. (Not that I know how to program them...) ~ trialsanderrors 06:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

In for now is fine by me Pete.Hurd 06:22, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I posted some general formatting questions on the Template talk:2x2 game page. ~ trialsanderrors 00:48, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Long overdue, I'm phasing this one out and am replacing it with {{Payoff matrix}}. ~ trialsanderrors 10:15, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Game Theory Wiki

I don't know if anyone here is aware of this or not, (or even interested for that matter), but there presently exists a Game Theory Wiki which looks like something somebody started and then abandoned. I copied a couple of pages from Wikipedia over to there, but it's got quite a ways to go, to say the least. Anyways, I thought some people here might be interested in turning that Wiki into something. Have a good one! EPM 22:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Interesting... I had never heard of it. Personally, I don't see the point of a seperate wiki for game theory. Between Wikipedia, Wikibooks, and Wikiversity I think all the bases are covered. Although, if anyone has any ideas about the benefit of this wiki, I'd be interested to hear. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 23:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Truth / lies

Hi! (I'm not 100% sure this comes under game theory but nevertheless...) There is a classic logic problem which has many versions but basically revolves around the principle of 2 people who both know a fact that you don't (often which fork in the road to follow or, as in the film Labyrinth, which door to choose), however one of whom always lies and one of whom always tells the truth. There are a few solutions to this, but the most common involves asking one of them what the other would say.

Does anyone know where this problem originated, who (if anyone) proposed it, or what it's commonly called? (I've heard it referred to as a "Smullyan" problem, after Raymond Smullyan, however Smullyan was a twentieth century mathematician so I find it unlikely that this is how it is commonly referred.

Is this problem chronicled anywhere on Wikipedia? (I've searched with little luck!)

-- MLD · T · C · @:  15:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem is called knights and knaves (although I know the problem, I had to ask around to find the name). Our article does in fact attribute it to Smullyan, for what its worth. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 19:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Outside opinions

Hello all. There is a disagreement currently at Talk:Chicken (game) regarding whether or not the article Peace war game should be merged or kept separate (which stemmed from a discussion of whether or not Hawk-Dove is the same game as Chicken). Can a few other people chime in on this discussion? Thank you. (I will be out of town starting tomorrow, so I may not respond promptly.) --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 22:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I've written Discoordination game based on a copy of Chicken (game), I intend to redirect Chicken to Discoordination game once I am reasonably happy with the new article. The day may come when Chicken (game) and Hawk-Dove game are split out of Discoordination game to become independent articles, but I don't think that's in the immediage future. I welcome comments. Pete.Hurd 23:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to slap some clean-up and verification templates on Peace war game. If there's no examples of this game in the wild, then I imagine it heading for AfD. Thoughts, comments? Pete.Hurd 23:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I think AfD is unnecessary. Just replace the article with a redirect to Discoordination game. Its proponent seems to have disappeared, and I think the creation of discoordination game addresses the issue of his that I understood. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 00:10, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, avoiding AfD makes sense. I expect the author will return. If he brings RS then it's a valid merge candidate, but some cleanup effort will be required. I'll slap some templates on it and leave it be for now. Pete.Hurd 04:25, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Assesments

Hello all - I have added the ability to rate articles (both in terms of quality and importance to game theory) to our Template:GameTheoryProject. Take a look at the template page for instructions. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 18:05, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

So here's how I've been thinking about the importance ranking.

• Top: articles which the general public might be interested in (i.e. game theory, nash equilibrium, and prisoner's dilemma)
• High: articles which might occur in an undergraduate class (e.g. ultimatum game, best response, subgame perfect equilibrium, etc.)
• Mid: articles which would occur in any graduate course (e.g. fictitious play, rationalizability, common knowledge)
• Low: everything else

How's this sound? --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 02:07, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 00:03, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)