Subject: [clisp-list] MT project contribution

From: Lyn A Headley <[email-masked]>
Date: 08 Jun 2001 13:05:56 -0500

hello,

i'm interested in helping out with the MT project, and i'd like to see
others contribute what they can, even if it's just a little.  So I
submit the following contribution which depends on contributions from
others.

In english, I commit to contributing the average of the highest five
contributions offered after this one, with my limit being 50 dollars.
If five others don't step forward with some sort of contribution, my
contribution is 0.

in lisp code, it looks like this:

(defun my-contribution (others)
  "given a list of all the numerical contributions received by the MT
project after the posting of this function, returns my contribution"
  (flet ((average (list)
           (/ (reduce #'+ list) (length list))))
    (if (>= (length others) 5)
        (min 50 (average (subseq (sort others #'>) 0 5)))
        0)))

what say ye?

-Lyn

---

From: Lyn A Headley <[email-masked]>
Date: 08 Jun 2001 14:17:43 -0500

[whoops forgot to reply all]

    >> ((average (list) (/ (reduce #'+ list) (length list)))) (if (>=
    >> (length others) 5) (min 50 (average (subseq (sort others #'>) 0
    >> 5)))
    Don> Min?  I originally interpreted your "limit" as the MAX you
    Don> were willing to contribute.  But I guess it's too late to
    Don> back out now, isn't it?  (Just kidding.)  The real problem is

my limit is 50.  the function returns (min 50 n) making 50 the maximum
i could have to pay.

    Don> what happens when other pledges arrive with amounts depending
    Don> on other pledges that include yours!  I want 5 people to
    Don> pledge "$1 more than Lyn".

don't think I haven't thought about that :-) This is actually an
example of a type of problem that i'm very interested in and haven't
seen much talk of, problems where communities make decisions in which
each individual's choice is motivated by the choices of others.  I
call them "United we stand" problems.  One person who has done
extensive work in this area is lorrie faith cranor who wrote her
thesis on declared strategy voting, in which each individual's vote is
represented by a function which takes into account the preferences of
other voters, to minimise the possibility of "throwing your vote
away."

http://www.research.att.com/~lorrie/dsv.html

i'm actually laying down some (open source lisp) code right now to
explore these issues in a web community context and hope to release
something in a week or two.  I'm also interested in thinking about and
coding the ramifications specific to the MT project if they should
arise.

-Lyn

---

From: Stig E Sandoe <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2001 01:42:30 +0200

Quoting Lyn A Headley ([email-masked]):
| hello,
| 
| In english, I commit to contributing the average of the highest five
| contributions offered after this one, with my limit being 50 dollars.
| If five others don't step forward with some sort of contribution, my
| contribution is 0.

I'll chip in as well with the same terms as Lyn suggests, if someone 
devices a suitable payment-model.  A community-effort which reminds
me slightly of Rousseau appeals to me :-)

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------
Stig Erik Sandoe     [email-masked]    http://www.ii.uib.no/~stig/

---

From: Paolo Amoroso <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2001 13:51:18 +0200

> each individual's choice is motivated by the choices of others.  I

What about the stock market?

Paolo
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