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Gaming the system

April 12, 2024

"Bending the rules" redirects here. For the film, see Bending the Rules.
For the Wikipedia guideline, see Wikipedia:Gaming the system.

Gaming the system (also rigging, abusing, cheating, milking, playing, working, breaking the system, gaming, or bending the rules) can be defined as using the rules and procedures meant to protect a system to, instead, manipulate the system for a desired outcome.[1]

The first known documented use of the term "gaming the system" is in 1975.[2] According to James Rieley, a British advisor to CEOs and an author, structures in companies and organizations (both explicit and implicit policies and procedures, stated goals, and mental models) drive behaviors that are detrimental to long-term organizational success and stifle competition.[3] For some, error is the essence of gaming the system, in which a gap in protocol allows for errant practices that lead to unintended results.[4]

Although the term generally carries negative connotations, gaming the system can be used for benign purposes in the undermining and dismantling of corrupt or oppressive organisations.[5]

Examples edit

Finance edit

Henry Paulson, in considering that the financial crisis of 2007–08 demonstrated that US financial markets had outgrown the ability of the system that had been used to regulate them, saw as a necessity a better framework than US financial markets had used before. This framework would be one that featured less duplication and that restricted the ability of financial firms to pick and choose their own, generally less strict regulators—a practice known as regulatory arbitrage,[6] which had enabled widespread gaming of the regulatory system.

A similar, contributing effect has been identified within corporate rating systems, where gaming the system becomes virulent when formalization is combined with transparency.[7]

Internet edit

See also: Security hacker

Designers of online communities are explicitly warned that whenever one creates a system for managing a community, someone will try to work it to their advantage.[8] Accordingly, they are advised from the start to think like a bad guy and to consider what behaviors they are unintentionally encouraging by creating some new social rules for the community.[8]

Child-rearing edit

Parental divisions on child-rearing will always give the child plenty of opportunity to play one parent off against the other.[9] Object relations theory states that if one parent is easy-going and the other stricter, a child is likely to take advantage of that split. According to this theory, this is always a hollow triumph; the child is really hoping that the parents will begin to work together to set limits.[10]

It has been noted that contingent feeding—offering treats if an unpopular food is eaten—encourages children to argue and practice gaming the system by niggling over the fine print.[11]

NHS dentistry edit

NHS dentistry in the UK sees the frequent use of gaming the system in the form of adapting treatment to the payment system, which is frequently referred to as simply "gaming". The practice of adapting treatment to payment systems, rather than clinical need, is thought to be widespread in NHS dentistry and is considered by some to be a result of a poorly planned target based system.[12] The term is also used to describe obfuscation of the scope of NHS dentistry in order to "upsell" items of treatment that should be available.

Performance management edit

In performance management, gaming the system is finding ways to achieve good scores on performance metrics (for employees or departments) without achieving the aims of the corporation which the metrics were instigated to promote. This is related to the well-known problem inherent in incentive system design, sometimes known as perverse incentive, in that people will tend to pursue incentives, even by means that make no common sense, should the incentive be naively constructed. For instance, criticism of author-level metrics in science often described the vulnerabilities to gaming strategies of such metrics.[13][14][15]

Algorithmic governance edit

Whenever greater transparency is brought by the government to previously secret decisions, those decision processes become more gameable. Parties adjust their behavior to maximize their outcomes. The case of algorithmic governance is not exceptional. Regulated parties might even employ adversarial machine learning in order to fool algorithmic models.[16][17]

Other edit

Eric Berne identified a kind of gaming the system in a clinical context through what he called the game of "Psychiatry", with its motto "You will never cure me, but you will teach me to be a better neurotic (play a better game of 'Psychiatry')."[18] A few patients, he noted, carefully pick weak psychoanalysts, moving from one to another, demonstrating that they can not be cured and meanwhile learning to play a sharper and sharper game of 'Psychiatry;' eventually it becomes difficult for even a first-rate clinician to separate the wheat from the chaff.[18]

Some people confuse "gaming the system" with "working the system". Gaming the system has a negative connotation, while working the system has a positive meaning. Working the system implies that one is using an understanding to work within the system to attain sets of goals that align, whereas gaming the system implies using this understanding to attain specific goals that do not align with the rest of a set of goals. Depending on the observers' interest or preferred goals, this may be perceived as unfair or as an outcome for which the system was never intended. The cause of the difference between gaming the system and working the system lies in the existence of a (perceived) conflict between goals.

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Joseph Potvin. (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-06-26.(membership required)
  2. ^ 1975 Systems Engineering Conference Proceedings, Las Vegas, Nevada, November 19-21, 1975: Host Chapter, Central Arizona. American Institute of Industrial Engineers. 1975.
  3. ^ James Rieley (April 2001). Gaming the System: how to stop playing the organizational game and start playing the competitive game. Financial Times Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-273-65419-3.
  4. ^ Mark Nunes, Error: Glitch, Noise, and Jam in New Media Cultures (2010) p. 188
  5. ^ Ziewitz, Malte (2019). "Rethinking gaming: The ethical work of optimization in web search engines". Social Studies of Science. 49 (5): 2–3. doi:10.1177/0306312719865607. ISSN 0306-3127. PMID 31387459. S2CID 199467673.
  6. ^ Hank Paulson, On the Brink (London 2010) p. 441
  7. ^ M. Lounsbury/P. M. Hirsch, Markets on Trial (2010) p. 147
  8. ^ a b Gavin Bell, Building Social Web Applications (2009) p. 274
  9. ^ Skynner, Robin; Cleese, John (1994). Families and How to Survive Them. London: Cedar. p. 221. ISBN 978-0-7493-1410-1.
  10. ^ Casement, Patrick (1997). Further Learning from the Patient. London: Routledge. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-415-05425-6.
  11. ^ Benaroch, Roy (2008). Solving Health and Behavioral Problems from Birth Through Preschool. Westport: Praeger. p. 132. ISBN 978-0-275-99347-4.
  12. ^ Holden, A.C.L. (12 April 2013). "Justice and NHS dental treatment - is injustice rife in NHS dentistry?". British Dental Journal. 214 (7): 335–337. doi:10.1038/sj.bdj.2013.323. PMID 23579129. S2CID 24194048.
  13. ^ Peter A., Lawrence (2007). "The mismeasurement of science" (PDF). Current Biology. 17 (15): R583–R585. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2007.06.014. PMID 17686424. S2CID 30518724.
  14. ^ Şengör, Celâl. AM (2014). ""How scientometry is killing science."" (PDF). GSA Today. 24 (12): 44–45. doi:10.1130/GSATG226GW.1.
  15. ^ Biagioli, Mario (2020). Gaming the metrics : misconduct and manipulation in academic research. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-53793-3. OCLC 1130310967.
  16. ^ School, Stanford Law. "Government by Algorithm: A Review and an Agenda". Stanford Law School. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  17. ^ Cristianini, Nello; Scantamburlo, Teresa (8 October 2019). "On social machines for algorithmic regulation". AI & Society. 35 (3): 645–662. arXiv:1904.13316. Bibcode:2019arXiv190413316C. doi:10.1007/s00146-019-00917-8. ISSN 1435-5655. S2CID 140233845.
  18. ^ a b Eric Berne, Games People Play (Penguin) p. 136

Further reading edit

  • "The irrational guide to gaming the system". Mind Hacks. 23 May 2007.
  • Bevan, G; Hood, C (2006). "What's measured is what matters: targets and gaming in the English public health care system". Public Administration. 84 (3): 517–538. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9299.2006.00600.x.
  • Figlio, D.N.; Getzler, L.S. (October 2002). (PDF). NBER working paper series Paper 9307. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-09-05. Retrieved 2011-07-29.
  • Kralovec, E.; Buell, J. (2005). "High-stakes testing, homework, and gaming the system". The Humanist.
  • McKenzie, K.B. (December 2009). "Pragmatism or Gaming the System? One School District's Solution to Low Test Scores". Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership. 12 (4): 17–28. doi:10.1177/1555458909353184. S2CID 143815654.
  • Mankin, J (2009). "Gaming the system: how Afghan opium underpins local power". Journal of International Affairs. pp. 195–209.
  • Morreim, E.H. (1991). "Gaming the System Dodging the Rules, Ruling the Dodgers". Archives of Internal Medicine. 151 (3). Archives of Internal Medicine 1991;151(3): 443–447. doi:10.1001/archinte.1991.00400030013003. PMID 2001126.
  • Regis, C (2005). (PDF). Health Law Review. pp. 19–24. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-09-27.
  • Rieley, J.B. (Summer 2000). "Are your employees gaming the system?". National Productivity Review. 19 (3): 1–6. doi:10.1002/1520-6734(200022)19:3<1::AID-NPR1>3.0.CO;2-9.
  • Ziewitz, M. (2019). "Rethinking gaming: The ethical work of optimization in web search engines". Social Studies of Science: 1–25.

April 12, 2024
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Bending the rules redirects here For the film see Bending the Rules For the Wikipedia guideline see Wikipedia Gaming the system Gaming the system also rigging abusing cheating milking playing working breaking the system gaming or bending the rules can be defined as using the rules and procedures meant to protect a system to instead manipulate the system for a desired outcome 1 The first known documented use of the term gaming the system is in 1975 2 According to James Rieley a British advisor to CEOs and an author structures in companies and organizations both explicit and implicit policies and procedures stated goals and mental models drive behaviors that are detrimental to long term organizational success and stifle competition 3 For some error is the essence of gaming the system in which a gap in protocol allows for errant practices that lead to unintended results 4 Although the term generally carries negative connotations gaming the system can be used for benign purposes in the undermining and dismantling of corrupt or oppressive organisations 5 Contents 1 Examples 1 1 Finance 1 2 Internet 1 3 Child rearing 1 4 NHS dentistry 1 5 Performance management 1 6 Algorithmic governance 1 7 Other 2 See also 3 References 4 Further readingExamples editFinance edit Henry Paulson in considering that the financial crisis of 2007 08 demonstrated that US financial markets had outgrown the ability of the system that had been used to regulate them saw as a necessity a better framework than US financial markets had used before This framework would be one that featured less duplication and that restricted the ability of financial firms to pick and choose their own generally less strict regulators a practice known as regulatory arbitrage 6 which had enabled widespread gaming of the regulatory system A similar contributing effect has been identified within corporate rating systems where gaming the system becomes virulent when formalization is combined with transparency 7 Internet edit See also Security hacker Designers of online communities are explicitly warned that whenever one creates a system for managing a community someone will try to work it to their advantage 8 Accordingly they are advised from the start to think like a bad guy and to consider what behaviors they are unintentionally encouraging by creating some new social rules for the community 8 Child rearing edit Parental divisions on child rearing will always give the child plenty of opportunity to play one parent off against the other 9 Object relations theory states that if one parent is easy going and the other stricter a child is likely to take advantage of that split According to this theory this is always a hollow triumph the child is really hoping that the parents will begin to work together to set limits 10 It has been noted that contingent feeding offering treats if an unpopular food is eaten encourages children to argue and practice gaming the system by niggling over the fine print 11 NHS dentistry edit NHS dentistry in the UK sees the frequent use of gaming the system in the form of adapting treatment to the payment system which is frequently referred to as simply gaming The practice of adapting treatment to payment systems rather than clinical need is thought to be widespread in NHS dentistry and is considered by some to be a result of a poorly planned target based system 12 The term is also used to describe obfuscation of the scope of NHS dentistry in order to upsell items of treatment that should be available Performance management edit In performance management gaming the system is finding ways to achieve good scores on performance metrics for employees or departments without achieving the aims of the corporation which the metrics were instigated to promote This is related to the well known problem inherent in incentive system design sometimes known as perverse incentive in that people will tend to pursue incentives even by means that make no common sense should the incentive be naively constructed For instance criticism of author level metrics in science often described the vulnerabilities to gaming strategies of such metrics 13 14 15 Algorithmic governance edit Whenever greater transparency is brought by the government to previously secret decisions those decision processes become more gameable Parties adjust their behavior to maximize their outcomes The case of algorithmic governance is not exceptional Regulated parties might even employ adversarial machine learning in order to fool algorithmic models 16 17 Other edit Eric Berne identified a kind of gaming the system in a clinical context through what he called the game of Psychiatry with its motto You will never cure me but you will teach me to be a better neurotic play a better game of Psychiatry 18 A few patients he noted carefully pick weak psychoanalysts moving from one to another demonstrating that they can not be cured and meanwhile learning to play a sharper and sharper game of Psychiatry eventually it becomes difficult for even a first rate clinician to separate the wheat from the chaff 18 Some people confuse gaming the system with working the system Gaming the system has a negative connotation while working the system has a positive meaning Working the system implies that one is using an understanding to work within the system to attain sets of goals that align whereas gaming the system implies using this understanding to attain specific goals that do not align with the rest of a set of goals Depending on the observers interest or preferred goals this may be perceived as unfair or as an outcome for which the system was never intended The cause of the difference between gaming the system and working the system lies in the existence of a perceived conflict between goals See also editAbuse of process Airline booking ploys Alcatraz coup Astroturfing Bait and switch Bid rigging Campbell s law Cheating Cobra effect Cookie stuffing Corruption Creative accounting Deception Filibuster Front running Gamesmanship Goodhart s law Hacker Heuristic Insider trading International Obfuscated C Code Contest Jurisdictional arbitrage Legal abuse Legal opportunism Legal technicality Letter and spirit of the law Loophole Machiavellianism Malingering Malicious compliance Metagame Moving the goalposts OODA loop One upmanship Pension spiking Public service Pump and dump Return fraud Rules for Radicals Rules lawyer Sharp practice Shill Social bookmarking Abuse Tax avoidance Tax noncompliance Vote brigadingReferences edit Joseph Potvin The Great Due Date of 2008 slide 5 PDF Archived from the original PDF on 2016 06 26 membership required 1975 Systems Engineering Conference Proceedings Las Vegas Nevada November 19 21 1975 Host Chapter Central Arizona American Institute of Industrial Engineers 1975 James Rieley April 2001 Gaming the System how to stop playing the organizational game and start playing the competitive game Financial Times Prentice Hall ISBN 978 0 273 65419 3 Mark Nunes Error Glitch Noise and Jam in New Media Cultures 2010 p 188 Ziewitz Malte 2019 Rethinking gaming The ethical work of optimization in web search engines Social Studies of Science 49 5 2 3 doi 10 1177 0306312719865607 ISSN 0306 3127 PMID 31387459 S2CID 199467673 Hank Paulson On the Brink London 2010 p 441 M Lounsbury P M Hirsch Markets on Trial 2010 p 147 a b Gavin Bell Building Social Web Applications 2009 p 274 Skynner Robin Cleese John 1994 Families and How to Survive Them London Cedar p 221 ISBN 978 0 7493 1410 1 Casement Patrick 1997 Further Learning from the Patient London Routledge p 114 ISBN 978 0 415 05425 6 Benaroch Roy 2008 Solving Health and Behavioral Problems from Birth Through Preschool Westport Praeger p 132 ISBN 978 0 275 99347 4 Holden A C L 12 April 2013 Justice and NHS dental treatment is injustice rife in NHS dentistry British Dental Journal 214 7 335 337 doi 10 1038 sj bdj 2013 323 PMID 23579129 S2CID 24194048 Peter A Lawrence 2007 The mismeasurement of science PDF Current Biology 17 15 R583 R585 doi 10 1016 j cub 2007 06 014 PMID 17686424 S2CID 30518724 Sengor Celal AM 2014 How scientometry is killing science PDF GSA Today 24 12 44 45 doi 10 1130 GSATG226GW 1 Biagioli Mario 2020 Gaming the metrics misconduct and manipulation in academic research Cambridge Massachusetts The MIT Press ISBN 978 0 262 53793 3 OCLC 1130310967 School Stanford Law Government by Algorithm A Review and an Agenda Stanford Law School Retrieved 20 March 2020 Cristianini Nello Scantamburlo Teresa 8 October 2019 On social machines for algorithmic regulation AI amp Society 35 3 645 662 arXiv 1904 13316 Bibcode 2019arXiv190413316C doi 10 1007 s00146 019 00917 8 ISSN 1435 5655 S2CID 140233845 a b Eric Berne Games People Play Penguin p 136Further reading edit The irrational guide to gaming the system Mind Hacks 23 May 2007 Bevan G Hood C 2006 What s measured is what matters targets and gaming in the English public health care system Public Administration 84 3 517 538 doi 10 1111 j 1467 9299 2006 00600 x Figlio D N Getzler L S October 2002 Accountability ability and disability Gaming the system PDF NBER working paper series Paper 9307 Archived from the original PDF on 2012 09 05 Retrieved 2011 07 29 Kralovec E Buell J 2005 High stakes testing homework and gaming the system The Humanist McKenzie K B December 2009 Pragmatism or Gaming the System One School District s Solution to Low Test Scores Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership 12 4 17 28 doi 10 1177 1555458909353184 S2CID 143815654 Mankin J 2009 Gaming the system how Afghan opium underpins local power Journal of International Affairs pp 195 209 Morreim E H 1991 Gaming the System Dodging the Rules Ruling the Dodgers Archives of Internal Medicine 151 3 Archives of Internal Medicine 1991 151 3 443 447 doi 10 1001 archinte 1991 00400030013003 PMID 2001126 Regis C 2005 Physicians gaming the system modern day Robin Hood PDF Health Law Review pp 19 24 Archived from the original PDF on 2011 09 27 Rieley J B Summer 2000 Are your employees gaming the system National Productivity Review 19 3 1 6 doi 10 1002 1520 6734 200022 19 3 lt 1 AID NPR1 gt 3 0 CO 2 9 Ziewitz M 2019 Rethinking gaming The ethical work of optimization in web search engines Social Studies of Science 1 25 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Gaming the system amp oldid 1194456463, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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