Talk:Tit for tat

message: The term "Tat" in this article shouldn't be capitalized. According to the  naming convention:
:Do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is a proper noun (such as a name) or is otherwise almost always capitalized (for example: John Wayne, but not Computer game).
--goethean ॐ 19:41, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
*Oppose Tit for Tat is a proper noun, it is the name of a specific strategy. --best, kevin  ···Kzollman | Talk··· 01:11, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Add any additional comments
*Support for the reason given. (And because "a specific strategy" does not make a proper noun as according to our comma-splicer.) Stephan Leeds 06:00, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested move

message: :Add any additional comments
*Support for the reason given. (And because "a specific strategy" does not make a proper noun as according to our comma-splicer.) Stephan Leeds 06:00, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: Page moved per request and double redirects fixed. Ryan Norton T | @ | C 07:03, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Decision

message: What tournament is this article referring to? It just mentions a tournament without any explanation. - idiotoff 07:57, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: What tournament? 

message: In the introductory paragraph, "It was first introduced by Anatol Rapoport in Robert Axelrod's 1984 tournament." In the fourth paragraph of the Overview section, "For several decades Tit-for-Tat was the most effective strategy…" So... am I missing a few decades? Theory.Of.Eli 20:59, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the decades and reworded the sentence. It is not perfect, but now more accurate. Marc Harper 14:31, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Temporal confusion 

message: Is there any room on this page for practical applications of Tit for tat? Examples: Bittorrent, Stop Lights…  Swerty 20:05, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Or a lot of cooperation in nature (between unrelated organisms). Yeah examples are good, I came to this article to see if it mentioned bittorrent. BrokenSegue 03:32, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Practical Applications

message: The strategy is not in itself an evolutionary stable strategy, by definition, as is stated at the end of the first paragraph.  While it prevents invasion by defectors, it is possible to invade a Tit for Tat environment with cooperators. TechnoBone 16:41, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Source, so we can use this observation?  Leprof 7272 (talk) 17:29, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evolutionary Stable Strategy 

message: There is a lot of information on Prisoner's dilemma that can be incorporated into this specific one. --165.230.46.148 22:02, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please, the game theoretic needs not more cut-and-paste material, but, rather, sourced and more reliable, verifiable material. No more essaying, please.  Leprof 7272 (talk) 17:29, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prisoner's dilemma article information 

message: I tried the tit for two tats strategy on the Utopia web-game and failed within days. The reason was, I guess, mostly because my opponents were more powerful than me. They got a full payoff when they defected. When I defected in response, I barely affected them. So "tit for tat", and "tit for two tats" seems applicable only in scenarios of players of equal power. Can anyone give a tip of strategies and research they have found concerning unequally powerful players?
:In Robert Axelrods book The Complexity of Cooperation he mentions for the first time the problem of unequally powerful players on page 127. Tommy 20:41, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about unequally powerful players? 

message: There is a possible offensive statement in its implications, in the following quote:
Also the theory can give insight in how technological innovation have taken place in history, and in particular, why the modern age evolved in the many competing kingdoms of Europe, but not for example in China.
I can't tell if this information is derived from Axelrod's book or not; could we reference that as the book's idea, or at least flesh out how Tit for Tat relates to the Enlightenment happening in Europe, not China?  I'm not trying to be excessively PC, but there were a lot of environmental factors involved in how different regions developed.  And besides, the exact point is unclear -- are we saying that China's relative isolation made them less internally cooperative?  It seems a bit sketchy to me. Aletheion 18:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like nonsense to me.  It's been deleted. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 03:16, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Offensive statement in Implications? 

message: The overview claims, "Similarly if it knows that the next two plays will be the last, it should defect twice, and so on." [Emphasis mine.] Clearly(?), this does not inductively extend to: "If it knows the competition will be limited to a finite number of plays, it should always defect." Why not? 
Or does it? And Tit for Tat should only be used when the end is determined randomly, after each round, so that an infinite game could be possible. Furthermore, only assuming a universe that manages to avoid a big crunch or heat death. (:  — gogobera (talk) 20:57, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I gave you a comment on your talk page. Tommy (talk) 21:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  ...and so on. Really? 

message: K, this article is great and all, but Tit for Tat is an adage or saying, and the general populace does not think of it in relation to the prisoner's dilemma. This article should either be a subsection in an article about the actual saying or it's own article, such as Tit for Tat (Prisoner's Dilemma Strategy).   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.200.52 (talk) 02:32, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Seconded! Specifically, what is the etymology of the expression? --TimeHorse (talk) 11:24, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:   in part, in the edit today.  I began the generalization of the article today. Please, @User:TimeHorse, others, continue the process?  Leprof 7272 (talk) 17:29, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remarks [Generality of Article, Etymology] 

message: Has it been proved (under appropriate conditions) that Tit for Tat is a Nash Equilibrium strategy for Infinitely Repeated Prisoners' Dilemma? 146.115.34.7 (talk) 20:28, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Has Nash Equilibrium been proven?

message: Game theory is not all of tit for tat. It has other informal meaning that ought to be explained at the start before the game theory kicks in. 89.242.93.56 (talk) 13:11, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: in the edit today.  Began the process of generalizing the article today.  Leprof 7272 (talk) 17:29, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not just in game theory 

message: My recollection is that tit for tat is not optimal; that the testing in the 1980's was (inadvertently) rigged in its favor.  Does anyone have more concrete information along these lines?  --Quantling (talk) 17:00, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tit for tat is not optimal 

message: This parenthetical in the Overview section:
(Thus, the game-theory measure of effectiveness is impractical in many real life situations where players do have a vested interest in, or an altruistic compassion towards, other players.)
I have to disagree.  If the players do have "a vested interest in, or altruistic compassion toward, other players" then that should be reflected in their own payoff matrix.  It does not make game theory impractical, it just means you have to incorporate it into the model. Should we remove the parenthetical, add a discussion of this, or leave it how it is (in case someone disagrees with me)?  Luqui (talk) 12:58, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems the preceding sentence is at the root of your objection, as it generally rules out a payoff matrix which takes into account benefits other to the player. This would be incorrect if, for example, the players were genetically related or had some other common interest eg Formula 1 racers from the same team. Stephen B Streater (talk) 15:03, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Luqui; the parenthetical statement is misleading.  A given model that does not include altruistic compassion in the payoffs isn't a shortcoming or weakness of game theory, but rather indicates that specific model is incorrect because it does not account for the "universe" being modeled.  Further, altruism can arise simply because the game is repeated as agents have a vested interest in their future transactions, even if the agents don't have altruistic compassion towards others.  Many (most?) real-life interactions do not have strictly independent actions.  Agents typically will either interact with the same agent sometime in the future or incur some effects due to communication of agents (e.g., if you rob a store, that agent will report your actions to the police, and you'll be arrested if caught).  Pure one-shot games are somewhat rare.  Information on this is pretty easy to find, such as http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-theory/ and much of this whole book: http://www.amazon.com/Repeated-Games-Reputations-Long-Run-Relationships/dp/0195300793  Halcyonhazard (talk) 08:05, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that one could redefine the payoff matrix so that it included altruistic compassion and/or a vested interest in the fate of the other players.  But then we would have no guarantee that the payoff matrix would continue to have the prisoner's dilemma feature (where there is advantage to the selfishness of ratting when the other player does not), and thus we could easily find ourselves in a situation where the tit for tat strategy is not applicable.  Or saying it another way, there are many situations where the tit for tat strategy is applicable (and more-or-less optimal) only if those situations are "dumbed down" by eliminating real world considerations.  I know people who see the phrase "tit for tat is optimal" and don't realize that the applicability of that statement has limits in the real world.  I am hopeful to have some note of this "limited applicability" in the article.  Quantling (talk) 13:45, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Modeling complex real-world interactions in social settings as simple repeating normal form games is analogous to modeling momentum using spherical cows gliding on frictionless surfaces in introductory physics classes; it's useful for instruction and may even be a good approximation for certain (many) real-world settings, but it is still a very simplified model.  Tit for tat is an important strategy that is most easily explained in such a simple environment, so I agree with your assessment that it should be qualified as such. Halcyonhazard (talk) 20:44, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not so impractical for real-life 

message: A good source for the Etymology of the expression is the Online Etymology Dictionary: probably a corruption of "Tip for Tap", as in I hit you so hard I tip you over and you hit me back with just a tap; this being unequal use of force.  --TimeHorse (talk) 11:42, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: in the edit today.  Made this edit in the lede rewrite and first section introduction today, using M-W dictionary as source of the same information.  Leprof 7272 (talk) 16:58, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology 

message: Christian tradition is not an eye for an eye tradition. Should be corrected imho..--LarryJ 19:51, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: because not found. I could find no evidence of this connection. The "eye for eye" appears in links at the end, and so this request is not germane to the article as it stands (as far as I can see).  Leprof 7272 (talk) 17:29, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Christian tradition is not an eye for an eye

message: Note, that if one of the two tit-for-tat strategists would switch to defecting in last game, as that wouldn't produce any disadvantages for him in the future, he would win having 30 points while the other tit-for-tat strategist would lose having only 25. And if all would defect one another in last move, the game will end in a 26-point draw. It's clear that if the prisoners aren't highly altruistic (as usually is the case with bandits) they will all defect one another in the end, because doing otherwise may only disadvanantage them. This is, of course, if they know that 6-th game is the last one and this is not a part of tit-for-tat strategy.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.221.56.166 (talk) 20:05, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Source of opinion? Le Prof  Leprof 7272 (talk) 17:29, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Example 

message: Two years ago there had been an  etymology  discussion; but, no one ever performed the edit.  If someone can, then please do so.  It is very needed; game theory is annoying to someone who simply needs the long term history. [ unsigned, presumed from 24.4.200.52 (talk) ]
: hopiakuta   Please  do   sign  your  communiqu%c3%a9 .%7e%7eThank You,   DonFphrnqTaub  Persina. 00:00, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  in the edit today.  I accomplished this twice requested general improvement to the article, which underpins all other usages (meanings) appearing in the article, whether game theoretic, biologic, or social psych. Unclear why the preceding editor focused in the lack of signature, and not on making the edit.  Leprof 7272 (talk) 17:02, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology, repeat 

message: Keep up the good work. [unsigned comment, 07:35, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really a useful contribution. But, at least no one can revert you for taking your initiative.  Leprof 7272 (talk) 17:00, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  This Article is the %$#&!!! 

message: This picture really does not capture the idea of this concept.    — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.253.123.211 (talk) 01:01, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: in the edit today.  I concurred, and removed the image.  Leprof 7272 (talk) 16:59, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Picture confusion

message: This phrase seems to scream out for a reference:
"The team which recently won over a pure tit for tat team outperformed it with some of their algorithms because they submitted multiple algorithms which would recognize each other and assume a master and slave relationship (one algorithm would "sacrifice" itself and obtain a very poor result for the other algorithm to be able to outperform tit for tat on an individual basis, but not as a pair or group)."
That was a very pertinent and current comment at one point in time and was perhaps independently recognizable as such, but that time is long gone now and needs a reference and perhaps rephrasing to indicate that it is no longer current. [unsourced comment]
: by someone earlier.  Offending statement no longer seems to appear.  Leprof 7272 (talk) 16:54, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference sorely needed 

message: Adding an example near the top of the article of what cooperation and retaliation mean, perhaps in relation to a prisoner's dilemma scenario, would be very helpful.  In lieu of any explanation, I can speculate that cooperation could mean silence, and retaliation means blaming/betrayal, but there should not be a need to speculate on such fundamental concepts to the article topic.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.100.23.77 (talk) 20:16, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: but I concur it needs to be.  Issue remains a problem in the business, social psych, and game theory sections. I concur with need for clarity, esp. in game theory and social psych areas, where the definitions exist. Leprof 7272 (talk) 16:55, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Key Concepts of "Cooperate" and "Retaliate" Never Defined or Explained 

message: The section heading is misleading -- the section goes on to talk about similar concepts in the Codex of Hammurabi and the Abrahamic religions. Are those "popular culture" now?
Maybe the heading should be "Similar concepts" or something (or the section could be removed entirely -- the first link under "See also" does the job just as well IMO).
178.115.129.150 (talk) 09:35, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  The "See also" link pretty much covers it.  I will make the edit.  Leegrc (talk) 15:09, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "In popular culture" 

message: The article does nothing to say how the phrase is used in regular parlance, i.e. that you need to add a verb: "to give tit for tat", e.g. "Sally gave Barb tit for tat - so juvenile!"  In nearly all the article, it's used as a type of strategy: "tit-for-tat strategy".  Note that in this use case it must be hyphenated, but never when used with "give".  I suggest the hyphenation be fixed throughout the article. 172.75.76.157 (talk) 09:20, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usage w/ & w/o verb, and hyphenation 

message: One not-so-great source is insufficient for us the make the as-if-known-fact claim that the phrase "tip for tap" was the origin, when lots of other material says it comes from "this for that" (ultimately via Dutch or Low German phrases for the same thing), or possibly from a French phrase meaning 'equal for equal'. It's easy to find material on this , though it will take some weeding to find sources good enough to cite.  This article really needs an "Etymology" section with the various hypotheses presented. Judging from old threads above, there used to be one, but perhaps it was deleted for being a bunch of OR without any sources or something. Not really interested in what was once there, just in making a good section like that now.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:36, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Tip for tap"