Yootles.com

Yootles.com -- Mechanisms for
Group Prediction and Decision Making

yoo·tle

l) KEY (variants: util, utile)
NOUN: A hypothetical unit of utility or happiness.

What's new in Yootopia...

Yootles API
Buzzword Betting Game for Yahoo! Researchers
Issue your own paper yootles (thanks to Erica Soule)
Yootopia Project (Yahoo Internal Access Only)

Yootles Whiteboard (version 194 -- 2008-08-24 09:49:31)

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[ver194] Yootles.com Whiteboard

See our paper draft for an introduction to Yootles, with an FAe appendix.

Yootles Mottos and Taglines:
 o In the Invisible Hand we trust
 o To Maximize Aggregate Yootility
 o "I want" vs "I really want"
 o "If you've never resorted to a coin flip, you could do better by yootling."
 o A Common Metric for Utilityjkkhjkhjkhhj
 o For Fairer Favors
 o Better Decisions Through Auctions
 o "I'll Yootle You For It"
dfgggfdg

Do's and Don'ts for everyday decision auctions:

Do's:

1. Make sure what's being yootled for is unambiguous.
2. Trust the Invisible Hand (and stick to the auction results).
3. Be magnanimous (offer to yootle for things you don't have to).
4. Argue your case before yootling.
5. When in doubt, just yootle (no disagreement => no payments).

Don'ts:

1. Don't acquiesce, just half acquiesce (offer to yootle for it; see Do #3).   
2. Don't offer a favor, offer half a favor (offer to yootle for it; see Do #3).
3. Don't assume anything about others' preferences (see Do #2)
4. Don't question others' preferences.
5. Don't go to Abilene [*] (see Do #5).

[*] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox

LIST OF THINGS IN SOCIETY THAT ARE NOT MONETIZED/YOOTLIFIED THAT COULD BE:
  (add any crazy thing you can think of -- it's just brainstorming)

[DKP] dragon kill points for world of warcraft
[DIV] dividing up chores
[ADV] seeking advice
[MTG] picking a time for a meeting
[FIL] p2p file sharing
[IMG] image tagging
[BET] beta testing
[PRI] prioritizing help-desk requests
[FAV] miscellaneous small favors from friends/family (includes MOV, RID, shopping, etc)
[POT] deciding who should bring what for a potluck
[ACT] picking activities, destinations, events for vacations / dates / evenings out, etc
[MYN] prioritizing and allocating computational resources
[HEA] health care (triage, pain scores, various insurance issues)
[DTH] the value of life
[BAB] baby-sitting club (parents taking turns babysitting)
[TIP] tipping on blogs
[DIG] news aggregation and editorial tasks
[REP] reputation systems
[DSH] taking turns loading the dishwasher / taking out the garbage / cleaning the bathroom / etc.
[RES] pick which of us has to drive / book flights / pick up tickets / make appointment / etc.
[NAM] deciding what to name one's child
[SPM] spam control
[FUT] corporate policy making (futarchy)
[ANS] a much better alternative to points on Yahoo!Answers!
[PIF] payitforwardmovement.org
[MOV] movie seating. cf http://xkcd.com/c173.html
[LND] borrowing and lending stuff between friends
[GAM] points in games
[EBA] eBay [like the yootles bazaar?]
[BUZ] playing the buzz game on Yahoo research (buzz.research.yahoo.com)
[FSG] Fantasy Sports Games 
[FSB] Fantasy Sports Betting - Friendly Yootling?
[POL] political polling
[STK] stock tips
[TRM] Trading DVD movies
[TRG] Trading used video games

RESOURCES: 
  http://del.icio.us/PegArmPaul/yootles  (you can subscribe to this list of links as an rss feed)

Add your email address here to receive updates to this whiteboard: ---------{SPM} 
 dreeves@umich.edu bsoule@gmail.com ckwicklow@sbcglobal.net thecat@umich.edu 
brad_spangler@yahoo.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------{NSPM}

SCRATCH AREA:

An API for Friendly Wagers (with SMS Interface) 90 second demo script:

This is risky but could I have a volunteer from the audience who's an SMS junkie?
What's your username?  [ycred username]  (This is a command line interface to the yootles API the
first incarnation of which we hacked together at last Hack Day.  Everything here works exactly the
same as sending text messages to 4INFO.)
Ok, now send yreg username to 44636 (4INFO).
Now your phone is registered with yootles.
Now send ywager hack, the probability you think I'm going to pull off this demo, and the amount of
money you're willing to put on the line.
[Enter my own bet.]
The bets are now in so we wait to see who was right... umm, we seem to be in a Hofstadteresque
self-referential paradox... but let's take a leap of faith that this demo will have worked so now
one of us just sends 'ypay hack yes' and, voila!  Here are the payments, which will be logged as an
IOU on the yootles ledger.

checking

SPAM BOX - check it to have email addresses between {SPM} and {NSPM} be notified of this update.

Printable version of the whiteboard

Daniel Reeves, Yahoo Research! -- Modified 2008.06.11 16:05:22 Wed (EDT)

Yootles.com -- Mechanisms for Group Prediction and Decision Making

Ledger to access:

What's new in Yootopia...

Yootles Whiteboard (version 194 -- 2008-08-24 09:49:31)

Printable version of the whiteboard

Yootles.com -- Mechanisms for
Group Prediction and Decision Making