# Sybil-proof Answer Querying Mechanism

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.13224 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.13224/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 27 May 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Emerging Methods of Auction Design in Social Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.00381/) (2021)
- [Multi-Unit Diffusion Auctions with Intermediaries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.07796/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We study a question answering problem on a social network, where a requester is seeking an answer from the agents on the network. The goal is to design reward mechanisms to incentivize the agents to propagate the requester's query to their neighbours if they don't have the answer. Existing mechanisms are vulnerable to Sybil-attacks, i.e., an agent may get more reward by creating fake identities. Hence, we combat this problem by first proving some impossibility results to resolve Sybil-attacks and then characterizing a class of mechanisms which satisfy Sybil-proofness (prevents Sybil-attacks) as well as other desirable properties. Except for Sybil-proofness, we also consider cost minimization for the requester and agents' collusions.