25.5. Gaming and Anti-gamingGaming is the process by which an entity manipulates a system to serve her personal interests while harming other users. A system that uses social processes is susceptible to gaming by an entity, whether the entity is a single user, a group of users, or an organization that is acting through users. Using basic economics[26] as an analysis lens, we can infer the conditions under which gaming will occur; these conditions are:
Consider a hypothetical instance of gaming in Acumen: a group of employees working for a company decide to block cookies from a competitor's web site, hoping that other users will follow suit, either manually or using rules. Many web sites are dependent upon cookies in order for their site to perform well and provide a good user experience; hence, for users who block its cookies, the competitor's site may offer only a limited user experience. Consequently, these users may be less likely to use the competitor's site and more likely to use the web site of the employees' company. Thus, the employees have gamed the system; they have successfully modified the system to obtain an outcome that is desirable for them but not for the larger community. It is difficult to make a system that utilizes social processes completely immune to gaming, but there are techniques that can make gaming more difficult. A general rule of thumb is
that it should be difficult (and sometimes forbidden) for a single user or a small group of users to significantly alter the system. Instead, users should be able to produce only incremental changes, and there should be a cost for performing such changes. The cost should be sufficient to discourage manipulative behavior. Ultimately, more research is needed about gaming and anti-gaming techniques in social systems, especially those used to support privacy management. Exploring how people game a social system is difficult, however, because an environment that encourages gaming must be fostered; often a system must be in sustained use over a significant period of time in order for an instance of gaming to arise. Figure 25-6. Acumen architecture![]() 25.5.1. Anti-gaming Techniques in AcumenAcumen's anti-gaming techniques are quite rudimentary. Recall that Acumen's maven formula uses a square root function and a summation function to make it difficult for users to become mavens artificially. We are currently exploring other methods to prevent gaming in Acumen. Acumen could decrease a user's maven rating over time; such decay would increase the effort it takes for users to remain mavens. A related problem is that of a user signing up for multiple accounts and using these accounts to exert more than his fair share of influence in the system. To address this problem, we are experimenting with an activity threshold such that data from users with less than a certain amount of activity (e.g., less than a certain number of sites visited) would not be included in the data shown by Acumen's interface. |