ou might have seen that we’ve been defederated from beehaw.org. I think there’s some necessary context to understand what this means to the users on this instance.
How federation works
The way federation works is that the community on beehaw.org is an organization of posts, and you’re subscribed to it despite your account being on lemmy.world. Now someone posts on that community (created on beehaw.org), on which server is that post hosted?
It’s hosted on both! It’s hosted on any instance that has a subscriber. It’s also hosted on lemmy.ml, lemmygrad.ml, etc. Every instance that has a subscriber is going to have a copy of this post. That’s why if you host your own instance, you’ll often get a ton of text data just in your own server.
And the copies all stay in sync with each other using ActivityPub. So you’re reading the post that’s host on lemmy.world, and someone with an account on beehaw.org is reading the same post on beehaw.org, and the posts are kept in sync via ActivityPub. Whenever someone posts to that community or comments on a post, that data is shared to all the versions across the fediverse, and these versions are kept in sync. So up until 5 hours ago, they were the same post!
“True”-ness
A key concept that will matter in the next section is the idea of a “true” version. Effectively, one version of these posts is the “true” version, that every other community reflects. The “true” version is the one hosted on the instance that hosts the community. So the “true” version of a beehaw.org community post is the one actually hosted on beehaw.org. We have a copy, but ours is only a copy. If you post to our copy, it updates the “true” version on beehaw.org, and then all the other instances look to the “true” version on beehaw to update themselves.
The same goes for communities hosted on lemmy.world or lemmy.ml. Defederation affects how information is shared between instances. If you keep track of where the “true” version is hosted, it becomes a lot easier to understand what is going on.
How defederation works
Now take that example post from earlier, the one on beehaw.org. The “true” version of the post is on beehaw.org but the post is still hosted on both instances (again, it has a copy hosted on all instances). Let’s say someone with an account on beehaw.org comments on that post. That comment is going to be sent to every version of that post via ActivityPub, as the “true” version has been updated. That is, every version EXCEPT lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works. So users on lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works won’t get that comment, because we’ve been defederated from beehaw.org. If we write a comment, it will only be visible from accounts on lemmy.world, because we posted to a copy, but our copy is now out of sync with the “true” version. So we can appear to interact with the post, but those interactions are ONLY visible by other lemmy.world accounts, since our comments aren’t send to other versions. As the “true” version is hosted on beehaw, and we no longer get beehaw updates due to defederation, we will not see comments from ANY other community on those posts (including from other defederated instances like sh.itjust.works).
The same goes for posting to beehaw communities. We can still do that. However, the “true” version of those communities are the ones on beehaw, so our posts will not be shared to other instances via ActivityPub. And all of this is true for Beehaw users with our communities. Beehaw users can continue to see and interact with Lemmy.world communities, but those interactions are only visible to other Beehaw users, since the “true” versions of the Lemmy.world communities (the ones sent to/synced with every other instance) is the Lemmy.world one.
Communities on other instances, for example lemmy.ml, are unaffected by this. Lemmy.world and beehaw.org users will still be able to interact with those communities, but posts/comments from lemmy.world users won’t be visible to beehaw.org users, as defederation prevents our posts/comments from being sent to the version of these posts hosted on beehaw.org. However, as the “true” version is the one on the third instance, we can still see everything from beehaw.org users. So we see a more filled in version than the beehaw users.
why are you so upset in general? have people said you couldnt be upset about it? or were people trying to explain something about a pretty new piece of software? i
ive looked through your history and its very aggravated.
you do know that i cannot deny you your feelings, no matter how hard i might try? im just a UN somewhere in the world, your feelings are real and your own
you can keep using gaslighting incorrectly too, i aint the word police, but you are using the word objectively incorrectly. which im a sucker for letting people know
but maybe you should think about how your presenting yourself. believe what you want about whatever dude, but you do post here publicly, which implies your willing to have discussion about your opinions
lol maybe this is why beehaw peaced out
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you are allowed!
but i dont agree with you
you see the difference right?
ive been in the same threads and I have seen none of what you’re talking about, even looked through your history
mostly it seems to be people trying to reasonably explain thats the game we’re playing. they get to do that, and they will not be the only one. Federation and all this is a fairly new thing, there will be pains like this going forward.
in addition, they have not made it permanent. it was about their carefully crafted community. is that lame? maybe, but thats the point of a decentralized platform. Their admins get ultimate control, lemmy.world gets the same freedom
and further more, the whole reason this spat started was your claim of gaslighting happening to you because of some commenters disagreeing with your opinions. which that doesnt fit the definition of the very serious and very damaging technique
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how am i being invalidating and disrespectful?
you are upset, thats ok! i dont think thats invalidating. you get to feel however you want, it is annoying that day 2 of my being here there is already some drama
i just dont agree thats its something to be that upset about or to the severity of the problem
its not blackmail, its not gaslighting, nor emotional manipulation
i just dont agree with the opinions you have stated
deleted by creator
quote me
i never said that at all. i have done nothing but respect you and your feelings about this matter, while giving you my quite reasonable take
i know we dont have to agree, thats why were not in the walled garden right? i welcome opinions that are different than mine, but you also have to respect what im saying right?
which it certainly doesnt feel like your giving me any benefit of doubt or anything. just assume im just some jerk
deleted by creator
well i still dont see disrespect or invalidation of they way you feel, unless defederation makes you question what is real around you, which i guess i assumed you didnt feel “crazy or insane” due to people disagreeing with you
and did you even read that thread? this is what you replied to that i saw
how was that gaslighting or disrespectful to the way you felt about it. where am i being disrespectful, outside of disagreeing with you?
Edit: furthermore aren’t you doin the same thing
a reply of yours further down
are you not, by your definition gaslighting them?