no way to delete an issue

[Jim Reesman]

i just provisioned a new account. i am the admin. i want to delete an issue. in the issue view (both the regular and new jira-labs view) there is no option to delete a newly created issue. i added my self to the jira-administrators and administrators groups in addition to the site-administrators that i was in by default. still no delete. there IS a 'delete' command on the right-click context menu in the Backlog view - BUT it throws up an error dialog saying "It seems that you have tried to perform an operation which you are not permitted to perform." and suggests I contact the admin (which is me).

[Jim Reesman · Accepted solution]

for anyone who finds this, the solution for me was to manually add myself to the *Project* Administrators group. i had not seen/found that the first time through all the admin/permissions settings screens. The fact that as the provisioning user, who is by default the site admin, is NOT automatically made a *project admin* for the default project that is initially created seems very strange to me.

[Joe Pitt]

Permissions for all actions are controlled by the permission scheme applied to the project. By adding yourself to the administrators group is simply means the group has delete permission in the permission scheme. 

Since you're new deleting issues ends up causing problems down the line. 

Do not delete issues. When you delete it is GONE. Hardly a week goes by without someone wanting to restore an issue. Deleting issues will come back and bite you when it is the most inconvenient. I suggest closing with a resolution value of Deleted anything you want to delete. I implement a special transition only the project lead can execute and it requires filling in a reason field from a select list (such as entered in error, OBE, Duplicate, Other) and explanation text.

Deleting issues destroys historical data. Missing issue numbers will eventually cause a question about what it was and why was it deleted even if it was done properly. Missing data always brings in the question of people hiding something that may have looked bad.

The only viable way to restore an issue is to create a new instance of JIRA and restore a backup that has the issues. Then export them to a csv file and import them to your production instance. You will lose the history.

[Jim Reesman]

Thanks for sharing. I've been using Jira off and on since it was introduced. For new Jira users who stumble on this thread, I want to push back against your admonition against deleting issues. We do it all the time, we've always done it, and we've never had any problems. Your bias reflects a someone-else-is-right-but-not-the-user view that is very specific, but far from universal. It seems to reflect a belief that there is some canonical "best practice" for project management. If true, Jira wouldn't have so much flexibility. Note that I'm writing from the perspective of the *admin* - that is I *own* and *define* policy and practice. Like many others, I know how to run projects the way I want to run them. Recall that the substance of the problem here is that Jira is currently creating projects but not adding the creating user to the Project Administrators group. The default scheme DOES allow deleting issues (by an admin). It's just unfortunately obscure, because not being treated as an admin of the project I just created is confusing imo.