This paper addresses the problem of free riding on peer-to-peer resource-sharing networks and explores methods for motivating
more cooperative user behaviour via an adaptive interface. The paper argues that the free-riding problem is not so much an
economic issue as a socio-psychological one due to a paradigm shift the user community is undergoing. Users do not yet understand
that they, and all of their peers, are both clients and servers and must therefore be taught new behaviour. Our method stimulates
community awareness and highlights the cause and effect relationship between user behaviour and performance (QoS) consequences.
Modeling the user’s interests, attitude and relationships with other users enables the interface to adapt to the individual’s
cooperativeness bias and give feedback on current community structure and activity. Feedback is delivered in the form of graphs,
animations and informative text.
This work has been supported by Canadian NSERC and CRA-Women Peer Mentor Grants.