Capturing Social Rules

Andrew G. WatermanLuis García Barrios

El Colegio de La Frontera SurECOSUR

San Cristóbal de Las Casas Chiapas, Mexico

Where we work• La Sepultura

• Buffer Zone

• UNESCO MAB site

• Mixed land-use surrounding protected watershed

• History of government, NGO and academic involvement

Research station

Where We Work

Stakeholders

• Landholders

• Government Agencies

• Campesinos

• Academics

• Conservationists

Issues in the Buffer Zone

• Desertification

• Deforestation

• Mis-management

• Contention/Competition

• Over-population

• Waste

“In brief, the main principle of the companion modeling (ComMod) approach is to develop simulation models integrating various stakeholders’

points of view and to use them within the context of the stakeholders’ platform for collective learning. This is a modeling approach in which

stakeholders participate fully in the construction of models to improve their relevance and increase their use for the collective assessment of scenarios. The general objective of ComMod is to facilitate dialogue, shared learning, and collective decision making through interdisciplinary and “implicated”

research to strengthen the adaptive management capacity of local communities. By using such an approach, we expect to be in a better position to deal with the increased complexity of integrated natural

resource management (INRM) problems, their evolving and continuous characteristics, and the increased rapidity of evolutions and changes in

number of stakeholders.”[Gurung, Bousquet and Trébuil, E&S 11(2):36]

• Type I: Generality is sacrificed for precision and realism

• Type II: Realism is sacrificed for generality and precision

• Type III

Models

• Type III Models

• Sacrifice of precision for realism and generality

• May foster the development of realistic “social rules” that govern the modeled resource

Models

“The validation of a model is not that it is ‘true’ but that it generates good testable hypotheses relevant to important problems.” [Richard Levin, 1966]

Models

• A way of testing social hypotheses related to a given model

• Brings divergent groups together

• Play can illustrate how stakeholders relate

• Application of social strategies to natural resource management problems

Gaming

• Games themselves can really be seen as their own types of models and understood in a theoretical framework (game theory)

• Simulation games allow intermingling of different types of models

• Through gaming, we can better understand population interactions and group impacts of working rules

Simulation Games /Model Games

• “COMMOD” process

• All Stakeholders Participate

• Greater buy-in from all parties

• Areas of mutual concern may be included

• Involves:

• Field Workshops

• Conference Workshops

Companion modeling

Initialization of Process

Field

Model

Simulation

Analysis of the situation

Role playing games/sessions

ComputerizedSimulations

Model development

Companion modeling

• Use a Type III model for realistic ecology

• Cellular automaton

• Geo-socio-ecological: interaction of earth/water/forest/development

• Realistic: cascading collapse

• Support for working or “Social Rules”

Companion gaming

“a model, which is given kind of representation among other possible ones, should be presented in an explicit and transparent way to avoid, as much as possible, the “black box effect” when it is proposed to users ... Intuitively, a MAS model could be seen as an RPG simulated by a computer”

“The validation of a model is not that it is ‘true’ but that it generates good testable hypotheses relevant to important problems.” [Richard Levin, 1966]

Models

Running type III Model as game

Participants play existing model/game

Social Rules discussed/iterated upon

Model allowed to run with social rules

as ABM. After effects seen, new rules proposed.

Social Rules added to game

during play

Game

BRMS/RMS

ABM

Companion gaming

Workshop

• A potrero token must be supported by 2 soil tokens in its SQUARE

• A potrero token must be supported by 1 forest token in its CROSS

• A soil token must be supported by 1 forest token in its SQUARE

• A water token must be supported by 2 forest tokens in its SQUARE

• A forest token must be supported by 2 forest tokens in its OCTOGON

• A potrero token must have a path to water in its CROSS

Workshop

Workshop

Packages

Enums

Model

• A potrero token must be supported by 2 soil tokens in its SQUARE

• A potrero token must be supported by 1 forest token in its CROSS

• A soil token must be supported by 1 forest token in its SQUARE

• A water token must be supported by 2 forest tokens in its SQUARE

• A forest token must be supported by 2 forest tokens in its OCTOGON

• A potrero token must have a path to water in its CROSS

Model Rules

• Lack of detail between between the UML data model and declarative rules

• May make rules understandable to a non software expert

• But difficult to create new social rules dependent upon the data model

• Can simulation/games be experiments, if rules are imprecise or unreproducible in different contexts?

Detail

• Can business rules, based upon a shared data model, be easily presented?

• Can this “holistic” model be understood by a diverse group of users?

• Researchers?

• Government analysts?

• Campesinos/Peasants?

Detail

OMG’s PRR?

• Production Rule Standard

• UML

• Visual modeling can export to multiple formats (ruleML)

• UML is already used by domain experts (Cormas/ComMod)

• Unfinished (working group) standard

• Perhaps better suited for exchange?

• Or deeper in process once actors can use and exchange UML?

• A bit complex for our small community

OMG’s PRR?

CORMAS UML

State Machine Diagrams as Flow

Current Computerized Rule Based Games

Gente (People)

Sierra Springs

A social rules game.

Pasale Compadre

Pasale Compadre

• Slightly more complicated game than Gente or Sierra Springs

• In workshop players failed to enforce all constraints of the ecological model

• Using a computer automates constraint enforcement; allowing a greater focus on social interactions and governance

• Computerization also allows quantitative analysis as sample sizes grow

Pasale Compadre

• Known as “working rules” in CPR

• Govern how a social group interacts with a common pool resource

• Agreed upon explicitly by participants and known to all

• Social rules work by queries and actions:

• when x is true then do y

What are Social Rules?

• Players take turns developing land on the board.

• When “a move was made whose player does not have the turn”

• Then: “forget the move ‘move’”

Starter Social Rules

Starter Social Rules

• Players must play by quadrant

• Assigned, Random or by a planned route

• When “a move is made to an unavailable quadrant”

• Then “forget the move ‘move’”

Starter Social Rules

Starter Social Rules

• Only a limited number of riparians (river trees) can be harvested per game:

• When “a move harvests a riparian over the limit”

• Then “forget the move ‘move’”

Starter Social Rules

Starter Social Rules

• Domain Specific Language Implementation

• phrases are expressed in a DSL

• rules are pre-baked into DSL

• players choose which apply

• Considering how we can use UML models work with DSLs in a gaming context

Social Rules

• Games played that include social rules defined by individual groups

• Expected impact of such rules discussed before play

• Run-time impact can be observed and discussed

• Games can be run as by “opportunistic” agents to view impact of rules on selfish behavior

Agent Based Models

• Field Work Experiments (2010,2011)

• Pasale Compadre

• Suggested Social Rules

• Collaborative Rule Modeling

• Agent Based Modeling of “opportunistic” strategy executing against social rules

• Evaluation of semantic changes in DSL BRMS’s governing rules

Companion Gaming

• Interchange through Model transformations

• OCL

• PRR

• RuleML

Reproducibility

• Exports to standardized formats

• Greater interactive game sets

• Social rule creation more deeply embedded

• Using SCM techniques available in BRMS for analyzing rule change over time

• Techniques for automation

Future

Thank You

awaterma@ecosur.mxlgarcia@ecosur.mx

El Colegio de La Frontera Sur