[FOSDEM] matrix accounts on fosdem.org ... do they stay?

[Matthew Wild]

On Tue, 9 Feb 2021 at 12:38, Kristoff <kristoff at skypro.be> wrote:
> You know. There is nothing wrong with information being deleted.
> Jitsi has a good rule for this: once the last person leaves the room,
> the room, including all chats, are automatically deleted.
> I don't exactly know how the matrix rooms work. I guess that when a room
> is deleted, also all the information is also deleted, but I don't know
> what happens when a room is never deleted (as happens with most rooms)
> Is information older then "x" time deleted, or is it stored indefinitely?

The whole discussion could do with someone from the Matrix team
weighing in. As I understand it, most/all of the rooms are probably
already replicated beyond chat.fosdem.org, due to the way Matrix
works. Shutting down chat.fosdem.org is not going to "freeze"
anything. Worst case I imagine it trying to catch up on 12 months of
activity when it is restarted in 2022 :)

This also has implications for people saying it should be deleted. The
messages are already out on the Matrix network. There may be processes
to request deletion of this data remotely, but no guarantee. Such is
the nature of a decentralized/federated network.

As for consent, people already agreed to the terms when registering an
account on the service (including that chats may be federated and
shared with other servers).

All the above aside, I would personally be in favour of just deleting
everything, as with all the ephemeral discussions that take place
during a normal event. FOSDEM is an annual conference, it's not meant
to be an archive of attendees interactions.

Regards,
Matthew