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I'm definitely seeing the benefits of belonging to a smaller Lemmy instance today.
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this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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No, federation is directional, so even if everything synced perfectly and instantly it wouldn't be the true version. Take this example. There is an instance that is federated with no one, but every instance is federated with it. Every other instance would see everything there but the instance it is hosted on wouldn't see any. There's no reason to say the version hosted there is the true one when it lacks so much of the conversation.
Also comments can lag when syncing to the main instance in the same way they can lag coming from the main one. All you can really say is that when viewing a post on an instance it has the true version of all of that instance's users comments.
Thank you! Really easy to understand
Let me ask you another question, where are my comments stored? Are they only in my instance or are they elsewhere too?
Lets say i comment on a post from my instance, if someone from another instance sees the post will il be replicated in their instances database?
What if i comment on another instances post? Will my comment be stored in the other instance database or in mine?
What if i delete a comment/post? Am i guaranteed in Will be deleted everywhere?
My understanding is that everything you do is first stored on your instance and then makes its way to instances that are federated with yours. I'm not sure about the specifics of it or deletion though. I haven't doved into the spec. Because it is called ActivityPub I bet it is the "pubsub" (publisher subscriber) pattern where other instances subscribe (federate) to be published to but it might not work like that.
This is why when you're the first user on an instance to subscribe to a community from another instance that no one on your instance has subscribed to yet it is somewhat more of an involved process because your instance was not getting anything from that community before and needs to start. I'm still new to this myself and basing it off stuff I've read people say who may also be wrong themselves though.