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SUMMARY:Computational Environment Design for Online Communities - Professo
 r David Parkes\, Harvard University
DTSTART:20120502T163000Z
DTEND:20120502T180000Z
UID:TALK31659@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Clare Kitcat
DESCRIPTION:One way or another\, users gain intrinsic and extrinsic reward
 s for particpating in online communities. Stackoverflow rewards users with
  reputation points and badges\, Yahoo Q&A with points and a leaderboard\, 
 while Amazon Mechanical Turk\, Epinions and Top Prospect pay users for con
 tributions. But how should extrinsic rewards be designed\, and what else c
 an be done in promoting effective user behavior? Professor Parkes refers t
 o this general problem as that of "computational environment design." A fi
 rst problem he discusses is that of routing a prediction task on a network
 \, where users can contribute information and also find other well-informe
 d users. He presents a family of local routing rules that are effective in
  isolating simple\, truthful behavior in this setting. A second problem co
 nsiders how to elicit information from users when there is no observable g
 round truth\, for example in the context of a reputation system\, or when 
 voting on good answers in crowdsourcing systems. He also present a robust 
 "Bayesian truth serum" that aligns incentives by eliciting both an informa
 tion report and a prediction report from users. \nIn closing\, he will ill
 ustrate the role of simple "to do" prompts in coordinating a crowd in solv
 ing a complex task\, in this case when planning custom trip itineraries\, 
 and reflect on what little we still know about user motivations.\n
LOCATION:Yusuf Hamied Centre\, Christ's College
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