Talk:Best response

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B This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.
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Mathematics rating: B Class Mid Priority  Field: Discrete mathematics
Maintained The following user(s) are actively involved with this article and may be able to help with questions about verification and sources:
Kzollman (talk • contribs • email), Pete.Hurd (talk • contribs • email)
This in no way implies article ownership; all editors are encouraged to contribute.
Best response was a good article, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Delisted version: July 14, 2007


Should combine figs 1 to 3 as in fig 4, I'd like to have them not float (equals not thumbnail) but then I loose the captioning and figure title ability, I think... Pete.Hurd 00:03, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Bravo Pete! Those look really nice. I move them around slightly and added the __NOEDITSECTION__ tag because the edit section tags were placed in strange places. If you don't beat me to it, maybe I'll play around with them tomorrow. If you want to have the caption I think you can make a table that surrounds the picture and then put the caption text in the table. --best, kevin ···Kzollman | Talk··· 03:44, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Nice fix-up! Thanks for the table tip too. I may make a figure for dominated strategies, then some text to qualify the assumptions made about games begin symmetrical. Cheers, Pete.Hurd 03:47, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Put in dominated strategy RC, then started in on payoff asymmetric stuff. I think the wording dealing with dominated strategies (dimension being probability of playing move 1) gets ugly. A bit too tired to make it more digestable, feel free to take a crack at it anyone. Pete.Hurd 06:24, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Aha! Adding center to the tag for the images keeps the text from wrapping. I have done that with the two big images, and it looks better I think. --best, kevin ···Kzollman | Talk··· 18:07, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Very flashy! Thanks! Pete.Hurd 18:34, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Good Article feedback

As much as I can possibly understand this subject, it looks good. A Wikipedia:Peer review would be more helpful here. The only thing lacking is inline citations; the good article designation will be assigned when the citations are added. —Rob (talk) 03:02, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, I think this article definitely needs more work. The stag game is discussed without actually being introduced - that would make sense if this article was being read as part of a series, but articles have to stand alone too. Quite a few mathematical terms aren't linked - link density is important in technical articles where non-expert users may need to familiarize themselves with a lot of definitions and vocabulary. Most importantly, the article doesn't even explain the very basic facts about best response - that there is usually not a single best response, but in fact the best response is to pick a particular response at random, using certain optimal probabilities to decide between particular responses. There is no way I can see that a person who didn't know this already would grasp it from the article, it seems to be simply assumed between the three line non-technical lead and the reaction correspondence section; those who do know that probably know most of the rest of the article already! So, a stronger foundational section would be good. Inline references would be great. The article is also heavily lacking in information about who discovered what, and when, other than the name-dropping of Nash at the beginning. More information on the history would help to make this article comprehensive. TheGrappler 00:49, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Having said that, much of the content is good, it's good to see the diagrams, and there is a reference section. Still, the article lacks coherency for the reasons given above. I think I'd be happy to pass this as GA if the coherency issues were resolved, though preferably with the addition of a history section. Neither of these would require that much work compared to the effort expended on the article already but would add to it very significantly. Inline referencing would be fantastic but it's quite a bit of work and not really necessary for GA status. TheGrappler 00:55, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Most importantly, the article doesn't even explain the very basic facts about best response - that there is usually not a single best response, but in fact the best response is to pick a particular response at random, using certain optimal probabilities to decide between particular responses. I'm actually not sure about this. Mixed strategy nash equilibria occur because a player is indifferent between at least two of her actions and mixing over them is as good as anything else. But the mixture is no more optimal for her (given her opponents strategies) than playing a pure strategy. In fact, I think it's the case that if it's ever a best response to mix between two actions it is also a best response to play a pure strategy. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 02:53, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I do apologise, I mangled up what I was trying to say in an effort to explain myself in a non-technical way... there clearly ought to be something about this in the article explaining this. At the moment though there is an unhealthy jump from the non-technical introduction into some meaty maths, getting straight in to the stag game (without explaining what the stag game is, or indeed providing a wikilink). Something explicit ought to be said about probabilities - a reader not conversant with the topic may be left confused otherwise. I suspect that there is actually enough here that can be said in a non-technical way (as it might appear in a Martin Gardner book, say) that there is room for both a more extensive non-technical explanation and the full technical definitions in the article. TheGrappler 19:11, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I dig it. Thanks a bunch for looking into this article. I'm sure that either Pete Hurd or I will make many of the changes you suggest in the next few weeks. Thanks again! --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 19:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Hey, thanks for the positve feedback. I hope to get on this RSN (up to my teeth in work, and the next few weeks is going to hectic with new baby) Cheers Pete.Hurd 20:42, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Responses to GA feedback

Ok, three basic comments from the first GA nom feedback

  1. needs inline citations
  2. needs gentle introduction to background material (eg. Stag hunt game)
  3. needs greater link density to help with mathematical concepts for the uninitiated

The inline citations are going to be tough, so much of this material is so basic that specific citations for specific sentences will be difficult, giving up on this one for now. Gentle introduction to background material, I've dealt with this here mostly by linking to the background material, I'm not sure how else to address this without having to replicate the majority of the Stag hunt etc articles within this article... Increased link density: I think I've gone to town on this, in fact I've largely tried to address the other two issues by increasing link density. Thoughts? worth another go at GA? Pete.Hurd 17:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

There is definetively a LOT of room for improvement; the article just jumps into the correspondence without explictly stating what the correspondence are trying to asses. I think a introduction to a game (not the prisoners dilema BTW) will give a higher insight of a what a correspondence is drawing at every point of a given domain... (87.86.38.62 (talk) 17:56, 11 December 2007 (UTC)).
It looks good, I think. I'm a bit busy for the next few days, but if I get a chance I'll give it a more careful once over. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 17:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
FWIW, I noticed that the GA candidate guidelines say "the use of inline citations is desirable, although not mandatory". I'd really like to have them here, but I can't see how to fit them in without a big shoehorn. Pete.Hurd 17:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I personally agree with the reviewers: inline citations are better. One tends to check out footnotes and it is really frustrating to see that they are all citations. I will also look into some original references. The textbooks cited could be mentioned somewhere as additional read. Koczy 22:06, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] B-class

I ranked this a B-class since it failed the GA. Personally, I think it's as good as many ga articles. We're free to rank it an A-class article even if it doesn't pass GA, but I thought that might be a bit presumptuous :) Anyway, if someone wants to change it, feel free. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 04:26, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

why the expand tag relly to be honest it's a great articale but i think you need more information on Coordination games besides that it looks greatOo7565 02:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I removed the expand tag, and asked Oo7565 to have another look, I just can't seem to figure out the best way to expand without distracting from the point being made. Feel free to restore the tag if it still needs to be there. Pete.Hurd 03:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
His response ("no the article looks great now") is here on my talk page. Pete.Hurd 20:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Pass

Hi I have reviewed the article and think the article meets criteria at WP:WIAGA. I think suggestions from previous reviews/comments have been met. The references are fine and I think the article is well written. As some one without any knowledge of game theory I found the article insightful and broad enough at least to explain the subject in relation to other background material and theory. Im afraid suggestions for improvement are a little thin. I would consider trying to expand the article as much as you can with as many more references as you can (if this is possible). I would also recommend the possibilities of adding some new sections such as a history section? Is John Nash responsible for the theory or who first attributed it to him in a published work etc. Secondly is there any criticism of the theory? Are their published works that have called to expand some concepts or to challenge it? These all just suggestions and might not be feasible but I do hopey youll consider them. Thanks and good work. LordHarris 11:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA review

This assessment surprises me. There has been very little change to this article since August 2006, and the article still does not address the inaccessibility concerns raised in the previous GA reviews. The lead is (I apologise to say) miserable as a summary of the article. There are other minor concerns about the formatting of references and the lack of historical material and/or background. I will attempt to improve these aspects over the next couple of days, but I doubt I will be able to bring the article up to GA standard myself. If the article still does not meet the criteria, I will delist it. An alternative would be to take the article to Good article review, and any editor is welcome to do that. Geometry guy 21:36, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
  5. It is stable.
  6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
    a (tagged and captioned): b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
  7. Overall:
    a Pass/Fail:


The lead is not a summary of the article and the prose is incomprehensible and terrible. I was not able to fix the other concerns I raised, and so I am delisting the article. Geometry guy 20:46, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Smoothed best response - QRE

I'm going to try to figure out a pretty way to link this to Quantal response equilibrium. Turns out the example given of a smoothed best response is the same response function used in Logit QRE. I was leaning to re-format the math here to match the standard presentation for QRE. Any thoughts? Cretog8 (talk) 12:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unmentioned assumption?

I'm concerned that this whole article appears to be written under the assumption that we are talking about a repeated normal form game. But the concept of 'best response' is more general than that; it can also be applied to an extensive form game. In that case, saying a strategy is a 'best response' doesn't say anything about its impact at the current decision node; instead, it means that the strategy, viewed over the whole game tree, maximizes the player's payoff taking other players' strategies as given. Therefore the word 'immediate' seems misleading to me in the first line of the article, so I'll remove it. And it would be helpful to be more precise in the discussion overall. --Rinconsoleao (talk) 07:50, 11 June 2008 (UTC)