Another user deleting channel question

Hello All. Thanks very much for Mattermost. We were successful installing it inhouse thanks to your instructions. We are testing out the software.

I just want to triple check something I read about 4.2 (We are on the latest 4.4). We are using the open source version. Is it true that we are unable to block regular users from deleting public channels? This is likely a deal breaker for management in that they would likely no want random team members deleting channels.

Also, is it possible to NOT keep chat history for direct messages? I suspect not since it looks to be a design goal of MM to track everything. But there are often communications that happen between 2 people that they do not want to bother tracking such as (what are you doing for lunch?). I am just checking.

Again, thanks for your efforts on this.

Dave

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Hi @dhayes16,

Thanks for your questions,

I see you have the team edition installed which is meant for small teams whose members are known to each other so there is a level of trust where team mates would not randomly delete public channels.

Should you wish to trial the enterprise edition which has permissions levels that can be set and better control over data storage and compliance, you can request a trial licence here.

Hope this helps?

I completely understand that you guys want to make this option to pay feature. I do think it’s kind of disingenuous to claim that small teams of trusted individuals who all know each other should never have a problem with this. I think that shows a willful ignorance of real world team dynamics and human nature.

Furthermore I think you phrase your objection the way you do in order to block this feature from being added to an open source project despite community demand.

You claim it’s outside the scope of the project when I suspect really the goal is to reserve it as a pay feature.

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I just found out that every employee in our company can delete any channel. This is unbelievable. It should at least be possible that NOBODY can delete a foreign channel. Fine tuning is not necessary. This is a huge security risk. It only takes someone from error or stupidity to delete a channel and important information is lost.

@VincentVegas if anyone deletes the channel inside the mattermost interface, the channel and messages are not really gone. System Administrators can restore the channel and all messages/settings through the platform commands. Take a look here: https://docs.mattermost.com/administration/command-line-tools.html#platform-channel

That being said, I agree - it would be a lot easier if this could be restricted in the team version in the first place (It’s just a matter of time before one of our users finds that button and gives it a test)