Create a stream owner/permission concept.

[showell]

This ticket basically replaces #566, and I'm creating a new ticket to draw more attention to the concept.

We would like to have the notion of a "stream owner," who is a person that can admin particular streams without having full-realm-wide admin powers. Stream owners would be able to do things like forcibly remove users from the stream, change the description, and rename the stream.

One of the nuances discussed on #566 is that we need to be thoughtful about how we allow stream owners to leave a stream. (We either want to prevent streams from becoming ownerless, or we need to ensure that admins can still do all the stream administration as needed.)

[showell]

If you work on this ticket, you should also consider more advanced permissions models for streams, such as the one discussed in #425. We occasionally hear use cases for wanting to invite folks to streams with read-only permissions (or even entire realms).

[penCsharpener]

could this be added to some road map, please? For coorporate use this is really quite useful to have.

[timabbott]

See #1122 for an implementation we'll want to consult when picking this up again.

[penCsharpener]

I might add that today I wasn't able to make a public stream private although I'm an admin because I hadn't created that stream. The person who created the stream couldn't do it either. The only work around was to make them admin for a moment, change the stream setting and revoking admin rights again. This is probably not a desired workflow.

[YJDave]

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[rishig]

Let's call the following "basic stream management":

• Change stream name
• Change stream description
• Unsubscribe people
• Make public stream private
• Delete (archive) stream

The current resolution is:

• All admins can perform basic stream management on all streams, including private streams they do not belong to
• There is at most a single stream admin, who is the stream creator. The stream admin can perform basic stream management of that stream.

It's "at most a single stream admin", since the stream creator can leave the stream.
In later versions we may add the ability to add/remove stream admins, but I think that can wait.

There is one more permission: make private stream public.
Only the stream admin and any admins subscribed to the stream can do that.
In the case where there are no such people: we should recommend the following workaround on the stream settings page: "add an admin, the admin can make the stream public, and then the admin can unsubscribe".

[gioragutt]

Hey guys, any update on this? I really like zulip and this point is really critical for me and the organization.

[rishig]

Thanks for writing in!
The majority of the work for this has been done and merged: https://chat.zulip.org/help/stream-permissions.

Is there a part of this on top of the work that has been done that is still critical?

[gioragutt]

@rishig Hey, I'm currently using the docker-zulip repo that does not have this feature yet. It sits on version 1.8.1-0. In what version was the feature merged?

Also, thanks for the quick reply!

[KirillKhrushkov]

Also it would be nice to implement functionality of adding/changing Stream Owners.
Organisation admin or Stream owner should be able to:

1. add any stream subscriber to Stream Owner role
2. delete anyone from Stream Owner role

But this is next step. The most important functionality is described at post above.

Thank you!

[decaz]

It's very important to add such stream privacy setting for "stream membership" so that either any member or stream owner only can invite users to stream.

[rishig]

@KirillKhrushkov got it, thanks!
@decaz we already offer this: https://zulipchat.com/help/stream-permissions

[decaz]

@rishig isn't any of the members of the stream can invite someone else to stream?

[rishig]

ah, I misunderstood your suggestion. You'd like to (have the option to) limit invites to the stream owner?

[decaz]

@rishig exactly! I think it's the main point of stream privacy.

[KirillKhrushkov]

Just one more thing.
Stream Owner should be able to change topic of messages anytime inside the stream as it is allowed for admins now.

[KirillKhrushkov]

Hi Team!
Could you please say if there are any news on this topic?
Thank you

[laem]

Being able as a member to create a stream but not rename it is disturbing.

[amartin3225]

Would this configuration for stream permissions provide an option to only allow the stream admin(s) to invite new users to the stream? I could see that as being a problem in large private streams - currently any member can invite new users which may be undesirable; if instead inviting new users was restricted to the stream admins, that would provide better management of stream membership

[timabbott]

I expect that once we have a stream owner concept, there's a bunch of features we'll be transitioning to be doable by the stream owner. I expect @YJDave will be building the core model for this in the next few weeks.

[gameglz]

Is it possible to add more roles to the organization ? such as staff members or mods. and have their roles displayed in the realm user list ?

[timabbott]

@gameglz it's certainly possible to do so with a significant fork, but we don't have a system for adding those inexpensively. What do you have in mind?

[gameglz]

it's certainly possible to do so with a significant fork, but we don't have a system for adding those inexpensively. What do you have in mind?

@timabbott
Like more roles that can be displayed in the server for different users or if this is customizable that would be even better. Sometimes we have lead staffs/support staffs or even team project managers in the server but we cant give them a roll or any recognition due to the lack of roles and authorities...
It seems very awkward when new people join in and dont know whos who..
Also theres another major issue I found during my 1st week of hosting my own server.
There needs to be an option for authority to creating topics... Because I find that sometimes its very messy when everyone could create topics under a stream. I server has over 200 members including staffs and just normal users. It gets very frustrating sometimes when i wake up seeing 50+ topics with just random titles....liek 1111, =, 。, etc... I just think there must be a better way to organize this

[KirillKhrushkov]

Hi Team!
Do you have any update on Stream Owner feature?

[Garagoth]

Hi!
What would be required to implement this?
It seems that once stream is created it cannot be edited by ordianry member, admins can change name, description and unsubscribe people. It is also possible to unsubscribe everyone with no option to subscribe again (except for manage.py commands).
Most other platforms offer concepts of member, moderator (threads creation and/or removal), stream owner (full control over stream), admin (as it is) and I am in need of those extra permissions.
I am willing to look into implementation but I would need some hints where is the necessary logic.

[nanohayder]

Hi,
any update on this? it would greatly help us

[timabbott]

This is being worked on currently. We're hoping it'll make the 2.2 release, but it's a fairly complex change to the permissions model that will need a lot of care, so no promises.

The current workaround in 2.1.x is to add an organization administrator to a stream temporarily, but I agree it's not great.

[pint-pint]

This is being worked on currently. We're hoping it'll make the 2.2 release, but it's a fairly complex change to the permissions model that will need a lot of care, so no promises.

The current workaround in 2.1.x is to add an organization administrator to a stream temporarily, but I agree it's not great.

What is the current status of this, has this dream been abandoned or is it still considered? As long as there are private streams, there should be a way for some user(s) to admin the stream without organization level admin privileges.

[Garagoth]

@timabbott You mentioned that this is being implemented and targeted for 2.2, that version was newer released (2.1.7 went straight to 3.0). What is the state of this feature, and if it was abandoned, could you please outline what needs to be done here (as you already worked on this, to not re-do same work)?

[pint-pint]

Has there been any progress with this? Snipping users out of streams burdens admins and is inconvenient for users who have to request the removals.

[Garagoth]

I think there is ongoing work for this in PR #15334 and also supplementary work in #12016, if anyone is looking for progress updates :-)

[Garagoth]

Oh no. I was really hoping for it to be included in 4.0 release.
Is there any hope for this feature?

[timabbott]

I've written up our technical plan for this area, which is now tracked at #19525. I expect that work to be the main project for multiple core team members for the next few months; if we're lucky it'll make the 5.0 release cycle.

I think it makes sense to close this ancient given those plans, since the precise design described here is much less flexible and the plan in #19525 will cover everything imagined here and more.