Warning, if no one is left in a private conversation

[MMXII]

I have users complaining about private messages that they have sent but never went to the recipient's inbox. I was wondering how this could happen, because I have never heard of such a problem before. It took me quite a while to find out what actually happened here: They responded to a private conversation that had no participants anymore (all had left). They did not take notice of the header, which states how many users are still in a conversation, because they scrolled down to the latest replies (it was a conversation which already had quite a few answers).

I don't know why answering to an empty conversation is even possible. If there are no participants, the message will never be sent to anyone. Anyways, here is my suggestion:

• When there is no (or no more) participant in a conversation and someone tries to post a reply, there should be a warning that informs about the fact that there is no one who will receive that message. Alternatively: Maybe there should not be an option to answer at all, if there are no participants.
• When there are participants again (e.g. due to an invite to said conversation), of course the warning should go away and regular posting should be possible again.

[Ramsesx]

Just as an additional information to your valid suggestion, there is an addon fixing this:

 

 

[MMXII]

Thank you for this info! Will check asap if this still works with the latest version 4.3.6.

I seriously hope though that this will make it into the core. In my opinion this is more than just a missing feature because you can use the software in a way that makes no sense, causes confusion and probably was not even intended to work this way (because... for what reason?).

[Joel R]

I use the plugin, literally got the warning yesterday in a message.  Definitely works on 4.3.6.