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

[David MENTRE]

Hi Ketty,

2006/10/16, ketty <address@hidden>:
> It seems like all problems steams from trying to delegete a search criteria
> that might overlap with another criteria.
> Two easy solutions are:
> 1. only allow delegation in a single question.

That's Jérémy's proposal  ("A delegated vote per question"). And this
is also used on the server side part of my proposal ("Only delegate
single question to a given delegate").

The only issue I have with this approach is that it might be too
coslty to compute. But with the correct algorithm and/or data
structure, that might not be an issue. I don't know.

> 2. don't allow overlaping criteria.

I think you need to allow overlaping criteria: we wan't to be able to
delegate a domain while still being able to vote on a specific
question covered by that domain (rationale: I don't care about the
domain in general ("legal procedures") but I'm very concerned by a
specific question ("death penalty")).

> I like the second one. If you tried to do a delegation that could conflict
> with a previous one the server simply answered "InvalidCriteria".

I think the server should provide the cause of conflict, otherwise you
can't understand the issue on the client side.

> A criteria would have to be boolean expressions if you wanted to create (more 
> than one)
> valid ones.

I dont' understand. Could you elaborate?

BTW, I've seen that you(?) have made an interesting proposal: "Do not
delegate on voting server, just publish public positions". I like it
because it would simplify both the server and the protocol. And this
approach is much more scalable (the client is doing the hard work).

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?

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.

Best wishes,
d.

PS: For the other readers, the proposals are on the wiki:
http://demexp.org/en/doku.php?id=delegation