Presentation from Rules Fest in San Jose, California, 2010.

1. Capturing Social Rules
Andrew G. Waterman
Luis García Barrios
El Colegio de La Frontera Sur
ECOSUR
San Cristóbal de Las Casas
Chiapas, Mexico

2. Where we work
• La Sepultura
• Buffer Zone
• UNESCO MAB site
Research station
• Mixed land-use
surrounding protected
watershed
• History of government,
NGO and academic
involvement

3. Where We Work

4. Stakeholders
• Landholders
• Government Agencies
• Campesinos
• Academics
• Conservationists

5. Issues in the Buffer Zone
• Desertification
• Deforestation
• Mis-management
• Contention/Competition
• Over-population
• Waste

6. “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]

7. Models
• Type I: Generality is sacrificed for precision
and realism
• Type II: Realism is sacrificed for generality and
precision
• Type III

8. Models
• Type III Models
• Sacrifice of precision for realism and
generality
• May foster the development of realistic
“social rules” that govern the modeled
resource

9. 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]

10. Gaming
• 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

11. Simulation Games /
Model Games
• 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

12. Companion modeling
• “COMMOD” process
• All Stakeholders Participate
• Greater buy-in from all parties
• Areas of mutual concern may be included
• Involves:
• Field Workshops
• Conference Workshops

13. Companion modeling
Initialization of Process
Field Analysis of the
situation
Model
Computerized
Simulations
Simulation Model
development
Role playing games/sessions

14. Companion gaming
• 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”

15. “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”

16. 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]

17. Companion gaming
Running type III Model as
game
Game Participants play
existing model/game
BRMS/RMS
Model allowed to
run with social rules
as ABM. After
effects seen, new ABM Social Rules
rules proposed. added to game
during play
Social Rules discussed/iterated
upon

18. Workshop

19. Workshop
• A potrero token must • A water token must be
be supported by 2 soil supported by 2 forest
tokens in its SQUARE tokens in its SQUARE
• A potrero token must • A forest token must be
be supported by 1 supported by 2 forest
forest token in its tokens in its
CROSS OCTOGON
• A soil token must be • A potrero token must
supported by 1 forest have a path to water in
token in its SQUARE its CROSS

20. Workshop

22. Packages

23. Enums

24. Model

25. Model Rules
• A potrero token must • A water token must be
be supported by 2 soil supported by 2 forest
tokens in its SQUARE tokens in its SQUARE
• A potrero token must • A forest token must be
be supported by 1 supported by 2 forest
forest token in its tokens in its
CROSS OCTOGON
• A soil token must be • A potrero token must
supported by 1 forest have a path to water in
token in its SQUARE its CROSS

26. Detail
• 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?

27. 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?

28. OMG’s PRR?
• Production Rule
Standard
• UML
• Visual modeling can
export to multiple
formats (ruleML)
• UML is already used by
domain experts
(Cormas/ComMod)

29. OMG’s PRR?
• 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

30. CORMAS UML

31. State Machine Diagrams
as Flow

32. Current Computerized
Rule Based Games

33. Gente (People)

34. Sierra Springs

35. A social rules game.

36. Pasale Compadre

37. Pasale Compadre

38. 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

39. What are Social Rules?
• 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

40. Starter 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’”

41. Starter Social Rules

42. 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’”

43. Starter Social Rules

44. 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’”

45. Starter Social Rules

46. 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

47. Agent Based Models
• 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

48. Companion Gaming
• Field Work Experiments • Agent Based Modeling
(2010,2011) of “opportunistic”
strategy executing
• Pasale Compadre against social rules
• Suggested Social Rules • Evaluation of semantic
changes in DSL BRMS’s
• Collaborative Rule governing rules
Modeling

49. Reproducibility
• Interchange through Model
transformations
• OCL
• PRR
• RuleML

51. Future
• 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

52. Thank You
awaterma@ecosur.mx
lgarcia@ecosur.mx
El Colegio de La Frontera Sur