Enhanced reputation-based tit-for-tat strategy for collaborative social applications

One known problem that can impact the sustainability of collaborative social applications is the presence of selfish users. In the literature, repeated non-cooperative game theory was introduced as a solution where several strategies were introduced to identify selfish users. However, such strategies do not differentiate between selfish learners and cooperative learners who are reluctant to answer others requests either due to lack of knowledge or confidence. In this paper, we show that educational and collaborative groups need to distinguish between those types of users and put in place mechanisms to encourage non contributing cooperative learners to participate rather than punishing them and excluding them from the group. An enhanced reputation-based Tit-for-Tat strategy is proposed as a solution that will enhance the group activity and overall gain.