Element-web: Remove/delete room (2nd attempt)

[rgpublic]

Like #722, which has been falsely closed as a duplicate of #906, I still think it should be possible to delete rooms without any shell script or other magic. We're using Matrix for some weeks now and are VERY happy with it, but the inability to really delete rooms (and NOT just hide them) is a major annoyance. I dont want to give all my coworkers SSH access to the chat server and tell them to run a shell-script just so they can delete rooms they've created. I'm aware of the fact that when federation is enabled you cannot really guarantee that the room is actually deleted. But: We have already the option during room creation to define a room as server-local. At the very least these rooms should be deletable IMHO.

[turt2live]

This is more of a server concern than the client. The server has the opportunity to delete rooms that have been abandoned, and synapse (at least) doesn't use this opportunity.

The best issue I can find that relates is: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/2338 (I could have sworn there was an issue for deleting rooms when they are abandoned though)

[richvdh]

(I could have sworn there was an issue for deleting rooms when they are abandoned though)

So could I. Anyway, https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/4720, until we track it down.

[fnorf]

Maybe "forcing abandonment" would be a different name then. If the admin of a room wants to make it "gone", they should be able to easily remove all its users, "lock" it so no one can resurrect it and suggest the server to drop all history it knows.

[karl007]

For everyone who search for a secure solution to delete a room (or something nearby), I create a php script as replacement for the nuke-room-from-db script, but use the API to kick all users and then let the garbage collector remove the empty room instead of deleting membership in the DB (and maybe miss something or screw up the DB): https://gist.github.com/karl007/521f6ab84a398ee27118ab89aae7a9dc

php riot_delete_room.php https://matrix.org "MDA...kYK" "#alias:domain.de"

The script only shows all members and the stop and ask if the members should kick. Then ask for a reason and a possible userId which should not kicked.

[Fnux]

It's weird for end-users not to be able to "delete" a room: it does not really matter if the room is left abandonned, but it would make sense for admins to have a "delete" button that kicks everyone, lock and leave. Homeserver GC can take care of the rest, but I think it doesn't matter from the user point of view.

It should not be hard to implement in riot.

[t3chguy]

It would be hard because as soon as there's multiple admins one admin cannot do this on their own, all admins would have to leave/derank themselves then the final one click this button. Admins cannot kick each other.

[Fnux]

Good point.

Issue we got at work today: someone created a duplicated room by error, and invited 5-8 users. It was confusing for them, as they had to do everything by hand. We could add an "Abandon room" button in settings for rooms with a single admin, which should already cover most use cases. Not perfect, but still better than the current situation. Would you be open to such a patch?

[mahemoff]

It would be hard because as soon as there's multiple admins one admin cannot do this on their own, all admins would have to leave/derank themselves then the final one click this button. Admins cannot kick each other.

I don't see this as a big enough hurdle to block an expected feature. If there's 2+ admins, just fade out the delete button with a message to reduce to 1 admins in order to delete it.