Cross Deletion

[Etan Reisner]

On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 08:11:07PM +0000, Joe Fedorowicz wrote:
> We currently have an XMPP setup, but there is one major glitch. Basically, when a user removes somebody from their buddy list, they are themselves removed from that other persons' list. This is a major problem as our lists change frequently.

This is the way this is supposed to work. The buddy list serves a number
of duties in XMPP. Beyond the normal usage of being a list of
people/entities you would like quick access to it is also the mechanism by
which permissions granted to other people to see one's own status are
stored (and vice versa).

When someone requests to add you to their buddy list and you grant them
permission that permission is stored in your roster. When you remove
someone from your roster you also revoke that permission (thus rendering
the other person unable to see your online status anymore). This doesn't
remove you from their buddy list but it will make you never show up as
online (showing offline buddies should still show you as
offline/unauthorized/etc. though).

If you want to stop being party to someone else's online status then the
proper thing to do is to unsubscribe from their presence
(e.g. right-click->Unsubscribe in pidgin). This will leave them on your
buddy list and thus leave your grant of permission to them intact.

Does that make sense?

    -Etan