Re: Multiparty interactions (was Re: Hypermedia workflow)

bhaugen wrote,
> Ok, clearly auctions involve multiple parties.
> In pairwise interactions:
> Offerer interacts with Auctioneer.
> Bidders interact with Auctioneer.
> All Bidders can see bids posted by Auctioneer,
> but do not interact with each other.
> At the end, winning Bidder interacts with Offerer.
> ("Offerer" could also be "Auctioneer".)
>
> Correct?

For some kinds of auction, certainly ... but not for "open cry" auctions 
(eg. English auctions): in that kind of scenario each bidder sees the 
other bids simultaneously to the auctioneer. One way of simulating this 
with pairwise interactions would be to have the auctioneer relay each 
bid to all the other bidders. But as Geoff pointed out this is 
inefficient wrt multicast, and requires the bidders to trust the 
auctioneer.

In game-theoretic terms, the transformation to pairwise interaction 
changes the landscape significantly ... it gives the auctioneer a lot 
more power than she would have had otherwise.

It's a really nice clear example ... I wish I'd thought of it.

Cheers,


Miles