Allow cancelling of stars from message

Question

Currently, the only way to cancel stars in a chat transcript is when the chat-message is visible in the chatroom's sidebar.

However, in a fast-moving, multi-star chatroom, the window of opportunity to cancel can be short, and rapid changes in starring can quickly make this impossible to do in a timely way.

We use stars as markers in moderator chat events (where the Community managers disseminate important information to the moderator teams) as well as for town halls during elections.

Feature request: Allow mods/room owners to cancel stars from the chat message menu box, including in the transcript.

Answer 1

Until this gets implemented you can use the following userscript to cancel stars as a room owner from the transcript:

// ==UserScript==
// @name         Unstar/unpin for room owners
// @namespace    http://stackoverflow.com/users/578411/rene
// @version      0.1
// @description  unstar
// @author       rene
// @match        *://chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/*
// @match        *://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/*
// @match        *://chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/*
// @grant        none
// ==/UserScript==
/* jshint -W097 */
'use strict';

// https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/262239/158100
function unstar(node) {
    var fkey = document.getElementById('fkey').value,
        id = node.parentElement.id.split('-')[1];
    $.post('/messages/' + id + '/unstar', {fkey: fkey}, function (data, status, xhr) {
       if (status !== 'success' || data !== 'ok') {
           alert('Not OK? ' + status + ' | ' + data);  
       } else {
           node.remove();
       }
    });
}

function unpinBuilder(node) {
    var outer = document.createElement('span'),
        sprite = document.createElement('span'),
        text = document.createTextNode("unpin/cancel stars (RO only)");

    sprite.className = "sprite sprite-ownerstar-off"
    outer.className = "star";
    outer.appendChild(sprite);
    outer.appendChild(text);

    outer.addEventListener(
        "click", 
        function () {
            unstar(node);
        }, 
        false);
    return outer;
}

function addUnstar(node) {
    var prevNode,
        currentNode,
        i;

    for(i = 0; i < node.childNodes.length; i = i + 1) {
        currentNode = node.childNodes[i];
        if (currentNode.nodeType === 1 && currentNode.nodeName === 'SMALL') {
            if (prevNode.nodeName === 'span') {
                // already added
            } else {
                node.insertBefore(
                    unpinBuilder(node),
                    currentNode);            
            }
            break;
        } else {
            prevNode = currentNode;
        }
    }
}

function processMutationRecord(record) {
    var node;
    if (record.addedNodes) {
        for(var i = 0; i < record.addedNodes.length; i = i + 1) {
            node = record.addedNodes[i];
            if (node.nodeType === 1 && node.nodeName === 'DIV' && node.className === 'popup') {
                addUnstar(node);
            }
        }
    }
}

var mut = new MutationObserver(function(items, src) {
    for(var i=0; i < items.length; i = i +1) {
        processMutationRecord(items[i]);
    }
});

mut.observe(document.getElementById('transcript'), { childList: true, subtree: true });

The script adds an item to the popup and on clicking that item it posts to /messageid/unstar as explained here.

If the script is active this is how your popup should look like:

Answer 2

I agree except that the users who gave out the stars should be able to remove them as well.

Of course, users who spam stars/remove dozens of stars at the same time can be easily be dealt by room owners and/or mods by allowing them to reverse the stars by themselves (or at least attract attention to that user). Users can have a "starred" history, which is similar to the "favorites" tab in the Profile page. Users can view what they have starred (and the star itself) and be able to remove the star by clicking on the star. Upon clicking, the dialog box will pop up asking if you are sure and voila! The star is removed and that message(s) will no longer be in the starred tab (after a reload).