WSU IS&T 1100 Internet Project

[firemeboy]

If you haven't registered a screen name, please do so. You can do so by clicking on the register link above. Please e-mail me your screen names. Keep them secret from the other students in the class.

Ok, this is what we are doing for the project. In a nutshell, here are the rules.

Rule 1- Everybody starts out with 1000 points.
Rule 2 – Sometimes you will know how many points you have, sometimes you will not. Sometimes you will think you know that you have at least X amount of points, but you will not know the exact number. This will vary based on the game.
Rule 3 – Always e-mail me your answers, unless I tell you that you can post here. Much of what we will do will be done in secret since most of the time on the Internet people don't know who you are.
Rule 4 – Feel free to discuss anything in this game in the class discussion area or here.
Rule 5 – Cooperation will be greatly rewarded in this game. If you cooperate, the group will win.
Rule 6 – Lying, cheating, sneaking behind the back will be rewarded as well.
Rule 7 – If you do not respond to a challenge or ‘game’, then you will lose points. If you miss two in a row, you will be out of the game (though if you let me know in advance, we may work things out…)
Rule 8 – Have fun. Remember, discussion is key so get to know one another… You need to decide who you can trust...
Rule 9 - The person with the most points at the end of the game wins.

That being said, here is the first challenge.

Challenge 1

As stated above, you each have 1000 points. In this challenge, I am selling 250 points to the highest bidder. You can buy these 'extra' points, with the points you already have. If you bid 100 points, and you are the highest bidder, then you lose those 100 points, but gain 250, for a net gain of 150 points.
The catch is that if you are not the high bidder, you lose half of the points that you bid. If you bid 100 points, and you are not the high bidder, then you lose 50 points and are just out of luck. Whoever wins the bid will be in the first place. In addition, whoever bids the lowest loses 80 percent of the points that the highest person bid. So in the example above, the person who bid the lowest would lose 80 points because the highest person bid 100.
If you choose not to bid, you will lose 250 points.
Questions?
e-mail me your bids. The bids cannot be done in public. If you want to raise your bid before the deadline, you are free to do so.

You can post what you bid online, but you don't have to tell the truth. If you post your bid online you still have to send me an e-mail confirming the bid.

My e-mail can be found in the course web page.

Deadline is Sunday the 6th, at Midnight.

Ask any questions you have here so the whole group can benefit from them.

Good luck.



[This message has been edited by firemeboy (edited 09-30-2002 12:17 PM).]

[CrystyB]

You should have given a "Destined for my class usage" warning at the top!

"Questions?" - yes: why EI?

And i challenge that "Whoever wins the bid will be in the first place"! What if the winning bid is >500? ((argh, no bid means i lose!!! ))

So another question: how do you round?

What part (and why) is supposed to be secret?

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 09-30-2002 12:34 PM).]

[lambiemommy]

I have made a bid. Is this the correct area to reply to you message. What happened to the other discussion stream?

[firemeboy]

This is the correct place. And I recieved your bid. I thought that I would start a new discussion with the rules right at the top so people wouldn't get confused.

[vlost]

Ok first we need to figure out the goal of this game. Do we want the whole group to win or an individual to win?
Rule 5 says, "If you cooperate the group will win".
Rule 9 says "The person with the most points at the end of the game wins"
So if I understand correctly we have a choice, work together and win as a group or lye cheat sneak and try to win as individuals.

If we choose to lye and cheat I believe there will be no points for anyone at the end (at least that is how it worked out when I played this in High School)

So here is a strategy for the first challenge:
Every one (except for two) bids 4 points for the 250
One person bids 5
One person bids 3
This way the person with the lowest bid will only loose 4 + 1.5 = 5.5 points.
The winner will only pay 5 points for 250.
The rest of us will only loose 2 points.
This means that the Group will have a net gain at the end of this challenge.

I will volunteer to be the looser. I will bid 3 points.

If you have already bid please change your bid. Thanks

[firemeboy]

[tavien]

Thanks for the invite Vlost but I am going to play this game on my own. I think the best way to play this game is to bid a lot more than 5 points. That is why I am thinking abour bidding around 75 points.

[lambiemommy]

Vlost: You have a very interesting idea. I have a few questions, presuming that everyone were to follow your plan, and say, I was to change my bid to 5, that would mean that everyone else would have to bid 4. How could you know what the other's have done? I could say that I have bid according to your plan, then bid whatever I wanted, all of the rest could do the same. Obviously, no one will admit to blowing your scheme, what if they have other agendas? Who takes the bid the next time? Do we just follow the same scheme to the end of the game? What if the challenges change in nature so that there is a greater cost for those who are bidding a low three or four points? Who do you trust? AND can you trust everyone?

[gabray]

My bid is in. And so you Know, I don't trust you. But I do know the winner never bids very high.

[vlost]

THE WAY TO WIN IS TO WORK TOGETHER!!!

Here is the new plan.
Everyone bid 0. Yes, 0 is a valid bid and then every one will have the highest bid and receive 250 points. Every one will have the lowest bid and loose 80% of 0 witch is 0.

WE ALL GAIN 250 POINTS!!!

[Snoopy2002]

Just as an FYI, I have already inquired about the possibility of two people bidding the same amount and Marion tells me in the history of him doing this project -that has never happened. I think bidding 0 is not a valid solution, and once again it is based on the assumption of trust. Even if a small group of us came into a shared trust agreement, there is no guarantee another out there in the class wouldn't have placed a higher bid already. In this part of the game I feel it is an individual decision that is needed, maybe later on in the game we can pull together, I don't think that time is now.

[vlost]

I just sent my bid for 0.
When everyone bids 0 we ALL WIN.
If we don’t bid 0 then ALL except one will LOSE.
It’s not a matter of trust is a mater of one’s character.

[Mr. Orc]

Vlost, You are right but It doesn't look like people are going to go along with what you say.

[Titan]

vlost, I also think you have an interesting strategy, but I'm wondering why your so eager to bid the lowest. However I like the idea that your bidding zero because that means I won't be the lowest bidder. Good luck!

[Casey Wheeler]

We all need to set our pride aside and just bid zero.

[Titan]

We are now down to the end of the week and I'm wondering what the decision is. once again I feel that vlost has a great idea, but I don't think everyone has posted their ideas with us. So do we assume that they are playing along or do we all go on our own.

[SteelCity]

Hey V lost your strategy won't work because the rules say if you are the low bidder you lose 80% of the winning bid not your bid so 80% of my 249 will be about 200 points you'll lose.

[KamelRetro]

As we all know vlost, there is no way everyone will bid 0. However, I do agree with titan, it was an interesting idea. I just don‘t believe there is an accurate approach to the game. I am just going to bid a number and hope that I am not the lowest bidder.

[skycon]

I know that vlost is bluffing to get us to bid zero, then he is assured not to be the lowest bidder. Sorry, my bid is in and it is not zero...

[vlost]

To all those who bid anything but 0:
You are not only screwing me, but you are screwing everyone else in the class including yourself, so ENJOY.

To all those who bid 0:
The entire class has lost this challenge but maybe next challenge the class will work together, but if not it is just a game.

[firemeboy]

Greetings, I have just about everybody's bid. These are the people who have not sent me a bid. If you are on this list and have sent me a bid, it probably got lost in cyber space, simply send me the bid again, no harm, no foul.

James Boley
Rhett Ferguson
Matthey Jewitt
Mathew Williams


I am not going to post the results just yet. However, we will move on to the second challenge. Here it is...

Challenge 2

Since I am such a nice guy, I am going to give everybody 500 points. Free and clear. You don’t have to do anything.
Well, except for one small thing…
You have to decide if you want to keep what you have. Or try and take what other people have…You will do this by sending me an anonymous note that says one of two words.

Take.
Keep.

If everybody keeps what they have, then everybody keeps their points. All is clear. Singing and dancing will fill the streets.
However, if somebody decides to take, well… that is when things get tricky. Here is the run down for the chart below. The first two columns are the percentage of takers and keepers. The next two columns are what the takers and keepers would receive. So for example, if ten percent of the people ‘took’, and everybody else ‘kept’, then the people who kept would still receive part of the 500, but the taker would receive much more.
Of course everybody would take then, right? Well, if you do, then you will lose out big. If we have a lot of takers, then nobody wins, as is evident as you move further down the chart. It may be that people move into the negative.

code:

---

 








Take            Keep            Takers get      Keepers get


0               100             0               500


10              90              2500            400


20              80              1000            300 


30              70              500             200


40              60              0               100


50              50             -100              0


60              40             -200             -200 


70              30             -300             -400   


80              20             -500             -600 


90              10             -700             -800


100             0              -900             -1000


 

---

Discussion is critical. If you work together everybody wins, if you do not, then everybody loses. The question is do you trust each other? By sticking together, you can all come out ahead.

Discuss what you want to do!



[This message has been edited by firemeboy (edited 10-07-2002 12:11 PM).]

[vlost]

Marion

There are three things we need to know for challenge #2:
1 How many people are in this class?
2 If someone does not send you an email with a "take" or "keep" how will that person be considered?
3. How do you count that 10% / 90% for 2500 points? No more than 10% or are you rounding to the nearest 10%. In other words will 11% “takers” still get us the 2500?

[lambiemommy]

vlost,

This may be a hopeless group. I don't think we have anything that had unified us, nor had anyone's arguments been persuasive enough to convince everyone to work together. I'm sure that you have some sort of theory for this challenge as well, but, you had better make it good, because I don't think anyone in this group is willing to go backwards and there are a few who are downright cut-throat! I am nearly certian that there will be more "takers" than keepers in this round, you had better be prepared for that in the "plan". This time I think I'll wait to see what the rest do. Good Luck.

[Snoopy2002]

It would seem to me in this challenge that the ONLY way for us to all be guaranteed winners is to be Keepers. Since obviously no one trusts the other, can we really be assured that a good percentage of the class won't think they will be the small 10 percent that are takers and decide accordingly. In that case we all lose big time. Is it fair to just decide on a few handful of the class to gain 2500 points? If we want this one to be fair for all - we all need to be Keepers - that is the only way we all win across the board. I think it is much to dangerous to assume there will be no attempt to backstab, at least if we keep that number down, the rest of us will come out a bit ahead. If we can get unanimous cooperation, we will all win fairly.
I realize no one has any reason to trust me, as well as I have no reason to trust anyone else. I guess we really need to hear some feedback from everyone this time. This challenge has some serious penalties - do we want to take that chance?

[firemeboy]

[SteelCity]

This is very difficult because of the amount of people that are not participating in the discussion. The ones who are participating, it seems to me that they do want to work as a group: Vlost, Casey, Titan, Mr. Orc, Mommy, Snoopy, and myself. If we could somehow get about five more people to cooperate with us, even though we don't have the whole class working together, we could get about sixty percent of the class and we might be able, at least in this challenge have more control. If the sixty percent of us cooperating, voted to keep, we would gain 100 points on the other 40 percent. One problem I see is there are probably a few people not participating in the discussion and they are probably just reading everyone's comments and basing their decisions on what everyone else is doing. I wanted to ask Marion if we could set up private forums for the ones who wanted to cooperate. I don't know much about this game but I don't think our strategy should be to win as many points as you can on each challenge. If a group of us could gain 100 points on this challenge and 50 points on the next one and so on, that might be the best way. It is hard to trust anyone and almost impossible to trust everyone but if we could get a majority it might be better than individuals.

[This message has been edited by SteelCity (edited 10-08-2002 10:25 PM).]

[firemeboy]

If you want to share e-mails, you can discuss things in private that way. Unfortunately I don't have a way to set up a private forum.

I am not going to count those that don't send in a bid so don't worry about that. I will only take the percentage of those that send something in. Those that don't will just be out of the game, and thats not a good thing when you are receiving a grade...

[lambiemommy]

It is clear that what we need is a running tally of who is bidding which way. This would give us some leverage in our decision making process. Just like in congress where the numbers of votes for and against a bill are kept so that you can see who is in the majority. I agree that the best way to win this challeng is to be a majority of keepers, however, there is a high probability that many of those not participating in the discussions will sweep in and be takers because they see an opportunity to take advantage. We have to remove the advantage before any plan will work, the only way to do that is to know the tally of votes, and then if there are those trying to take advantage, change our votes so that they don't gain by cheating. (Can you tell I'm a Mommy?) We need to set up a cause and effect relationship with CONSEQUENCES for disloyalty to the group. This will help us build trust as well, because most of us can be trusted to act in our own best intersests, we must make that the same as the group interest. That is the problem with the internet and annonimity, there are no consequenses. Just my thoughts.

[Mr. Orc]

If we did have a running tally I don't know who I would trust anyway. I think everyone else has the same feeling. But, it is still the way to go. Its apparent that we all need to be keepers. Does anyone disagree? Even if there is one or two "GREEDY" people among us that will be takers, at least we will still get some points instead of outright losing points. So for everyone who either doesn't care, or doesn't mind, and isn't "greedy", lets be keepers. WHO AGREES

[ptc0709]

It makes total sense to me to be a keeper. However, since opposition in all things is also good. Taking has its benefits. HMMMM. I think I'll choose...email sent>>>

[EEEM]

Oooh. I like this. I wish I'd gotten in on the GL trial run. Carry on!

[SteelCity]

We do need to know how many are voting what ways. Email me at Happyg1605@aol.com and I will write you back. If we communicate outside the discussion area to decide what we are going to do, then the ones who aren't participating can't just read our messages as we try to plan something out. I will probably only read email from the ones I mentioned earlier because they are the only ones that sound like they want to cooperate

[skycon]

I agree that in situations such as this, cooperation is the key to success; however, I know that there are those out there who talk alot of noise about cooperation, but when it comes down to it they will do whatever is in their own best interest. I don't know about you, but if someone was cheering me to go one way (keep), then I would be cautious. He might be the one to betray those whom he has gained alliance with (and take). I will stay tuned and see how this plays out.

[firemeboy]

OK, here are the results from challenge #1. I have two of you who sent in bids, and I know who you are, but I don't know your screen name. So if you don't see yourself, let me know what your name is and I will let you know which one you are...

code:

---

Screen Name	Challenge 1	Result


Aiden	        251	        999


Mulek	        5	        997


KamelRetro	7	        996


Rodneylips	50	        975


ptc0709	        51	        974


gabray	        95	        952


Titan	        105	        947


Tavein	        120	        940


skycon	        150	        925


Mr. Orc	        154	        923


Elaine          200	        900


Nanuq99	        230	        885


Snoopy	        250	        875


SteelCity	250	        875


Lambiemommiy	249	        875


vlost	        1	        798


Dark Knight	1	        798

---

Also if I've messed up on my math let me know, I've been know to do that sometimes...

Marion



[This message has been edited by firemeboy (edited 10-18-2002 10:29 AM).]

[Mr. Orc]

Well we have seen the results of the first challenge. And its interesting that everyone came out as a LOSER. I agree that some didn't lose as bad as others but everyone LOST. PEOPLE LISTEN, the one thing I don't think is understood, is that these challenges ARE NOT challenges against each other. We all lost. If we would have all bid 0 then we all would be at 1250 pts. but instead we are all behind our original goal. I don't know about you, but I want to get ahead in life not behind. HOWEVER, we can learn from our mistake. Do you want to earn points? We are all assured to lose points (AGAIN) unless we are all keepers. If we do not work together we will LOSE points again. I imagine some have the thought that "At least I'm beating you", It doesn't matter who you are beating, the fact is that you have less points than you had before. So are we going to work together? PLEASE RESPOND.

[Chuck]

[lambiemommy]

Look at the bright side folks, no one lost that much ground. Try to remember that this is a class experiment. Some of us will behave just as we would in person, some are able to live a darker side and some are just here for the grade. I think it is interesting to see that most people were just trying not to loose too many points. (I know I was.) I hope that there are more keeper's than taker's on this next one, remember, we will know who you are when Marion posts the scores from this challenge, it just might be wiser to "keep" to avoid the backlash. By the way, you can all see from the bidding that vlost was trustworthy. Thanks for trying.

[Mr. Orc]

Chuck,
Your right the person with the most points wins. I don't know how I missed that rule. All well, 'May the best liar win'.

Mommy,
I thought that vlost was going to bid 0? I don't blame him for bidding higher. I didn't bid 0 because of the lack of cooperation. I do, however, also hope that we get enough keepers to get everyone some points.

[Titan]

I agree with Mr. Orc everyone participating in discussions should be keepers. I think that we would all at least get some points.

[gabray]

In this challenge it seems, that being a keeper is the safest bet.