Re: Pseudonyms and Reputations

[Nathan Loofbourrow <loofbour@cis.ohio-state.edu>]

Hal writes:
 > He wanted to set up an online game which would be ongoing for some
 > time, and which new people could join periodically.  New members
 > would be given a certain amount of resources (fuel, money, etc.) to
 > start with, and then they would compete with others in the game to
 > try to get more.  At any given time standings would be available to
 > show who had done the best in terms of getting the most resources.
 > 
 > The problem was that based on the rules of the game it was hard to
 > prevent people from colluding to transfer resources among
 > themselves.  This would allow someone who was doing poorly to
 > create a bunch of pseudonymous accounts, enter them in the game as
 > new users, and then to transfer their initial resources to his main
 > account. The result would be that the standings would reflect skill
 > at creating pseudonyms more than the abilities which the game was
 > supposed to test.

Perhaps this is only reflective of the Real World, where he who gets
to the scarce resources first wins. Either you put a cap on the total
resource (meaning some must starve, unless they can trade something
else of worth), or you must allow limitless expansion.

You could impose an annoyance factor on the distribution of initial
resources (a week's wait, perhaps), or on unlikely transfers (you
can't give away the resource except in exchange for some other form of
goods... an Objectivist's paradise, perhaps?)

Finally, there's always forced socialism: A high tax rate or inflation
rate should keep folks from accumulating ill-gotten wealth for long.

Without delving too deeply into the details of the simulation, isn't
the liquidity of the value of the resource a hedge against people
attempting to stockpile same through polynymity?

nathan