Hide former members and recipients in dropdown menu

Feature Proposal
1

Expected behavior

Former members and recipients are hidden in a dropdown menu below the members/recipients list.

Actual behavior

Former group members and channel recipients are displayed below the members/recipients list.

Explanation

The list of former members/recipients in is a result of the improved group algorithm. I think it makes sense for this list to be available to users, since the information is collected anyway. However, it could also confuse some people, and this information is usually not important. Therefore, I think it might be better to hide this list in a dropdown menu, like the login details in the advanced settings.

2

For channels there is actually no reason to keep former members.

3

Collected on client side?
Is it used like cache, in case user will return to group, or for other purpose? (just curious)

Personally I was slightly confused by this ‘former members’ part of the list. Maybe kill this part completely?
There are plenty of information DC app does not show to users, like mail headers and logs.
If one need such list, I’m sure there are ways to get it from client’s database.

Or what is the use case for this particular ‘former members’ list, if there is one?

4

Yes, the information is only stored on the devices of the group members, just like all other group data. As far as I know, this is to prevent problems if former members load an old backup in which they were still a member of a group.

5

It is used to remove past members in case the “member removed” or “member left” message is delayed or lost. Member list in Delta Chat is essentially a Last Write Wins CRDT, each member is a pair of the state (being part of the group or not) and a timestamp of the last change. The whole list is sent in each message and is merged with the local member list on message reception.

Past members are completely deleted from the list 60 days after leaving or being removed.

6

this is super confusing and annoying, more than once I scrolled in group with many members and didn’t realize when the memberlist ended and when the past members started, and was trying to remove an already removed past member and was really confused “why can’t I select this member to remove it!?”

it should not be displayed at all IMO or put in a single item where one clicks and then get the list of past members, like on whatsapp where only group admins get to see this