Allow users to store address and rep data

[wbt]

The front page advertises a nice feature: "Enter your address to find your representative and senators and then get alerts." Entering an address works to find the right rep and senators (as far as I can tell) - go GovTrack! (The "get alerts" part is considerably less obvious).

I propose allowing a logged-in user the option of storing their address.

I would probably implement this as an Addresses table which in addition to the normal address columns (e.g. street, city, state, zip) has one for the congressional district as a cache of that information (state is already there to determine senators). This could be programmatically updated as district maps change following a census (or if maps only change about once a decade, maybe add a column after each census). Having a separate table for addresses allows flexibility for future possibilities like letting someone have historical addresses and matches between their preferences and their former legislators', even after they move.

We might also consider a more privacy-friendly option where the bulk of the address isn't stored, but the state and district are; users who choose that option might see some notice to re-check their district when the maps change (that should be a separate Issue, after this one's implemented).

This suggestion kind of follows on from this comment, and again is something I might be able to do in the future, but am first putting this up for discussion and feedback on the idea before implementation. I'd imagine following this up with some new features (to be discussed in separate future Issues) to highlight the tracked activities of the user's representatives.

[JoshData]

Hi.

I don't think this solves a problem that users are actually having.

[wbt]

This is an enhancement, not a bugfix (though "then get alerts" doesn't seem to match the options which follow a legislator lookup). I don't think the majority of folks remember who their legislators are, even after having looked them up. It'd be nice to be able to match one's own positions on bills to the sponsorship/voting record of one's own representative.

[JoshData]

An enhancement that doesn't solve a problem isn't really an enhancement then, it's just more code. :)

[wbt]

It solves the problem that people can't (or choose not to spend the energy on) remember who their reps are and that it's currently a fairly large amount of effort to figure out if they are voting in a way that aligns with one's own views.

[JoshData]

people can't (or choose not to spend the energy on) remember who their reps are

Like I said, I don't have a reason to think that that's an actual problem people are having on the site.

[wbt]

Do you have statistics on occurrences where the same address gets looked up more than once? That would be the signal to check for, though I don't think that data is being collected now.

[JoshData]

I don't track that, no.

[wbt]

Also, how is the "get alerts" part supposed to work (especially being specific to one's senators/reps) if the information is not stored?

[JoshData]

The ID of the rep/senator being tracked is stored.