Purge messages from blocked users from Messages API

[hackergrrl]

Now that moderation (#45) is in, we can start removing messages from banned users.

Question: should all message history for a banned user be purged, or just all messages since the ban?

cc @cblgh @Karissa @substack @cinnamon-bun @nikolaiwarner @telamon

[cblgh]

i liked karissa's nuancing point of it being useful to see the context of why someone was banned. this is the default in irc for example

simultaneously the opposite is also useful, where everything is removed from the banned peer. i think all messages since the ban has a precedence and creates observability where there otherwise is none

[telamon]

@cblgh +1
I'm thinking there should be at least two levels of severity.

In the scenario where a conflict results in a user is being forcibly ejected from a group, then you'd most likely would want to keep the history in order not literally 'lose' the argument, hehehe.

In a different scenario where a malicious user generates 300+ nonsensical spam feeds, then you would most likely want to filter those feeds during replication/exchange to prevent them from bouncing around among the peers and potentially overloading a cabal.

I can also think of a couple of scenarios where you would want to eradicate all traces of a single feed....

But i'm uncertain on when to apply which severity and who or what will get the power to decide.

[hackergrrl]

Good points, everyone. What I'm taking away is that we ought to let the person doing the ban to

• optionally supply a ban reason (reason field)
• choose between e.g. exile and expunge types of bans (exile keeps history, expunge does not)