as of v1.13:


How can one be an "owner" if they do not hold the root key?

Is that merely then a level assigned? Assigning 'owner' level in fopnu never seemed to take effect unless it was accompanied by the application of root key. Different with DarkMX behavior?

A non-keyholding owner can be created by:

step 1 - setup a room with two owners, Fred and Alice, both having the room key, Fred is in Host Mode On, Alice Off
step 2 - Alice removes her copy of the room from DarkMX by right-clicking it and selecting Remove
step 3 - Alice re-obtains the room by gathering or adding it via URL
step 4 - Alice starts the room, and re-connects to Fred, who will remember that she is still an owner

Alice is now a non-keyholding owner, because the key was gone when she removed the chat room in step 2.

Fred can go to his admin user view, right-click Alice, and demote her, or ban her, or whatever.  It is the only situation where users of equal access level can mess with each other.  It is so an old owner can be purged, which would be impossible otherwise since nobody can be higher than owner.