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 can I still see posts/comments from beehaw users?
Until they defederated us, posts/comments were being sent to lemmy.world, so we can see everything from before defederation. After defederation, we are no longer receiving or sending updates. So there are now multiple versions of those posts.
Why can I still interact with beehaw communities?
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.
Why do I still see comments from beehaw users on lemmy.world communities?
Again, comments from before defederation were still sent to us. After defederation, it will no longer be possible for beehaw users to interact with the “true” version of lemmy.world communities. Their posts/comments are not being sent to any other lemmy. They also aren’t getting updates from any other lemmy, as the “true” version of those communities is on our instance.
Why do I see posts/comments from beehaw users on communities outside lemmy.world and beehaw.org?
That’s because the “true” version of those posts is outside beehaw. So we get updates from those posts. And lemmy.world didn’t defederate beehaw, so posts/comments from beehaw users can still come to versions hosted on lemmy.world.
The reverse is not true. Because beehaw defederate lemmy.world, any post/comment from a lemmy.world users will NOT be sent to the beehaw version of the post.
This seems like it’s worse for beehaw users than for us?
Yes. In my opinion, this is an extraordinarily dumb act by the beehaw instance owners. It’s worse for beehaw users than for us, and will likely result in many beehaw users leaving that instance. They said in their post that this is a nuke, but I don’t think they fully assessed the blast area. Based on their post, I don’t think they fully understand what defederation does.
The crazy part is that they want to be able to view and comment on other instances’ posts but not vice versa.
Like why should other instances agree to that?
Hopefully beehaw dies off quickly.
Yeah, the level of entitlement is insane.
I don’t get why you hope for this? Isn’t the point of fediverse to have lot of different instances for different people?
Beehaw will continue existing as it chooses to exist, with or without lemmy.world. Isn’t that a good thing? That’s decentralization. That’s what we want more of.
It’s a really shitty thing to do a growing platform. For the 3rd largest server to defederate a week into the platform growing is going to go a long way to convincing folks this platform isn’t viable. Honestly this may be it for me.
The Beehaw admins are really in love with their ideals but I can’t help but feel like they have effectively kneecapped a new platform.
I think your points about frustration are valid, particularly at this time when there’s a lot of reddit refugees. That said, it’s Beehaw’s choice what they’re willing to put up with. I think defederation with entire instances is a very extreme response to their issues, but ultimately it’s their choice.
I think with the admins’ mentality over there, they will probably end up with a very large defederation block list. For that reason, it is probably for the best if Lemmy’s most active communities were NOT hosted there. People should put the energy into building up other communities so the platform more broadly isn’t reliant on extremely moderated instances like Beehaw.
Major communities should be on instances that welcome a wide range of views that are also willing to have a robust and diverse admin team to handle issues, imo. That would be the healthiest solution overall. Beehaw choosing to defederate now is a blessing in disguise; it’s an early statement proving that instance is an unsuitable host for any community looking to be home to a broad-reaching and diverse member base.
This is a roadblock for sure, but this platform does work. I feel like the fediverse is perfect for Reddit. As soon as chat moves from beehaw we’ll be rolling again!
This is a roadblock for sure, but this platform does work. I feel like the fediverse is perfect for Reddit. As soon as chat moves from beehaw we’ll be rolling again!
I disagree. It’s like a poorly implemented private subreddit. People didn’t complain that that was possible before and I don’t see why they should now.
It’s quite literally free-loading off other instances though.
Not just in the content sense, but also the actual monetary cost of the image hosting, etc.
A little yeah, but even then their posts can still be seen by everyone. But I got the impression that wasn’t at all the point anyway. It was to keep control over comments and content, not to not shift monetary costs, though I suppose that will be an unintended side effect.
How much cost are you to lemmy.world? Are you planning to track it and pay for it?
How much cost is it to lemmy.world to federate with another instance? Are they going to keep track of it and send out invoices?
This free-loading complaint rings hollow.
On that note, is there a donations thing somewhere for lemmy.world? Would like the donate to the community so the servers can keep on scaling
Check the sidebar at https://lemmy.world/
Thanks :)
Where did you get this idea from? They won’t be able to interact with other instances from Beehaw. They clearly don’t want to based on this action.
Read their comments - https://beehaw.org/comment/262284
Site (instance)-wide limiting is exactly that.
That doesn’t seem accurate.
In that scenario, if a Beehaw account “follows” an account on a limited server, they would be able to interact as normal.