cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/482585

Using Beehaw’s /c/gaming community as an example: Can someone please explain why I am still able to view this community and even see new posts? I also saw a few posts from beehaw users themselves in the last day. According to the explanation from the admins, I should be able to see posts in /c/gaming ONLY from other lemmy.world users, however that does not appear to be the case. I am seeing content from other instances, including beehaw. Can someone explain?

I read the explanation for defederation like 20 times and I still don’t understand. It is incredibly confusing so if someone could explain this properly, that would be great. Thanks!

The thing I’m confused about is whether or not we should be seeing posts from anyone on /c/gaming @beehaw.org (as an example) that’s not from lemmy.world. Does that make sense? According to the admin’s post here, we shouldn’t, however I am still seeing a few posts that look new. Is this due to the caching issues? Because I’m definitely not seeing ALL of the new posts, just a handful. This is what i cannot seem to get a straight answer on. The below says no, however I definitely am 100% seeing posts from non-lemmy.world users on /c/[email protected]…

https://lemmy.world/post/149743

“This won’t ever stop. You’ll notice that all posts after defederation are only from lemmy.world users. You won’t see posts/comments from ANY other instance (including instances that ) on beehaw.org communities. Those communities will quickly suck for us, as we’re only talking to other lemmy.world users. Your posts/comments are not being sent to any other lemmy. I highly recommend just unsubscribing from those communities, since they’re pretty pointless for us to be in right now.”

  • RvTV95XBeo
    3·
    1 year ago

    Disclaimer: I know nothing.

    My understanding of defederation is as such:

    Defederation is a one way block

    /c/gaming@beehaw.org is hosted on beehaw, and any instance can index that content (including any comments from outside instances that they allow (federate with)) on their site for their own users to view. Users on all other instances submit comments to beehaw through their personal home instance.

    When you comment as a user from a community beehaw has blocked (defederated), it does not become a part of the “official” record at beehaw, and as such never gets indexed on beehaw or any other instances, which pull directly from beehaw, but your instance still records the comment for other local users to view.

    tl;dr - you can see them but they can’t see you.