Cannot delete branches, series, etc

[Kevin Cole]

Launchpad entries that are either created by accident or that become obsolete cannot be removed from the system (or there is insufficent documentation for such tasks).

<https://wiki.launchpad.canonical.com/RemovingObjects>

[David Allouche (ddaa)]

A user request: bug 34540 (cannot delete dud branch)

[Jamie Wilkinson (jaq-spacepants)]

It pains me to say it, but the UI gives the feeling that launchpad doesn't trust its own users; if we don't have the power to fix errors, we can't improve the quality of the data in it, and without that kind of trust, then launchpad loses value.

[David Allouche (ddaa)]

The corresponding bug for launchpad-bazaar: bug 34540.

Jamie, I agree Launchpad has a serious problem with not allowing users to delete stuff. Unfortunately, new features are usually implemented without regard for how to delete or disable objects, and once that's in, usability problems on existing pages or fixes for existing features are usually regarded as more important.

Some developers think that it should be allowed to delete dud objects, but the sabdfl does not want to hear about DELETE. The alternative, hiding objects, has complicated ramifications across subsystems because it must apply to significant objects with existing references. Admins have the ability to hide some objects (products come to mind) when they can check that this is not going to cause problems, but the feature is too fragile to make it publically accessible.

I think that's a very significant problem, unfortunately it is very difficult to fix in the current context.

[Paul Carduner (pcardune)]

I have created a branch with the wrong name. Given that I cannot delete that branch, I assumed I could make a new one with the correct name. Alas, Launchpad does not allow the creation of a second branch pointing to the same url. I can see how this might be a feature, but in light of not being able to delete, it seems like a bug. I imagine it is easier to allow two branches to point to the same url than to support deletion of brances.

[David Allouche (ddaa)]

Paul, the bug you are reporting is actually bug 51130. You should able to change the name you used to register the branch. We do not allow registering multiple branches with the same URL because we want to allow identifying a branch by its URL in Launchpad forms.

[lucasvo (lucasvo)]

David, You can change the name and all this stuff, but a) it does not look clean and pretty. It maybe even is confusing.
b) you can't change the url where you can push the branch. For e.g. I upload a bogus trunk, let's say from a different project to the location: sftp://<email address hidden>/~lucasvo/project/trunk. This is fix. Now, when I rename the branch, this remains. In the end I have:
Bogus-branch with url: sftp://<email address hidden>/~lucasvo/project/trunk

and Trunk with url sftp://<email address hidden>/~lucasvo/project/newtrunk

This happened to me and makes the LP mirror unusable for me.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Deletability of each type of thing must be implemented separately, so should be reported as a separate bug. Deleting branches is bug 2141, and deleting series is bug 34540.