Re: [Demexp-dev] Re: How to handle protocol modifications. Delegation.

[Francois]

On Le Monday 16 October 2006, à 14:38:10, David MENTRE wrote:
> However, would it work with a stateless client like the web client?

> How the state and preferences of delegation can be saved for a given
> client? Side effect question: if we solve this issue, can w use the
> same approach to allow simultaneous use of hard and web client?

Short answer : it does not work with a stateless client. 

Long answer : 
 1. The voting server could store some state information for
   the client, e.g. which question have been delegated and who is the
   delegate. In this case the server store both informations : the
   effective vote and the delegation part. It uses the vote for
   computing vote results and the delegation information just as the
   client store and retrieve it. As a side effect we resolved a part of
   using both hard and web client (not sure about simultaneity). Or
 2. The stateless client is not so stateless and store this somewhere.

Not to forget that there is two kind of information to store : 
 1. the delegated questions 
 2. the preferences for future delegations

and management of future delegation is not addressed in this e-mail.

> Another issue: the main use of a delegate is to let him vote in my
> place, change his votes, etc. and still follow what he is doing. If
> this is not automatized, I don't see much interest in delegation.

We must automate it. The big deal is to know how and where automate. 

We can automate great part (if not all) of delegation system on the
client side. But it needs the voter to at least launch the client for it
to update the positions. 

There were talk in demexp-fr some times ago about this problem of 
"effet vacances". I thought about it but does not found a fully 
satisfying solution. Some possibility could be the notion of proxy 
(in its legal meaning) who can vote in place of the voter during a 
limited period and only on questions not tagged as "definitive" (or 
something like that). This proxy could be an other people or some robot.

François