Lemmy.ca's Main Community @lemmy.ca pwnna @lemmy.ca 1y ago

inconsistent comments between instances?

I see a post here: https://lemmy.ca/post/921003. There is only one comment from me, but on lemmy.ml there are more comments and votes. Why is this the case?

50 comments

I run into this problem quite often actually.

I was viewing a post from a lemmy.ml community. If I view it from my .world account there are more comments. But the .ca is missing them. And this happens consistently.
I've found this in particular with lemmy.world with posts made on lemmy.ml communities, which seems to be the case in your example as well (the community you posted to is ThinkPad@lemmy.ml).

Lemmy.world has been defederated in at least one high profile case. ~~I have a suspicion .ml may have defederated as well without announcing (unless maybe we have defederated them here @lemmy.ca? Still working out how source of truth works myself).~~ edit: checked, both still list .world as linked

If an instance defederates another it means they will not accept engagement from that instance. However, if that instance does not reciprocate the defederation they still get a copy, and it is isolated to their instance. Ie. Comments/votes only appear on that instance and the instances they federate with.

Not entirely sure though as I would think that means lemmy.world would still receive edit/deletion broadcasts which it doesn't from my experience. So maybe just a bug.

Basically, at least from my experiments, Lemmy.world gets the original post / comment, and all engagement on the lemmy.world instance stays isolated there (lemmy.world has a large user base therefore often more engagement).

This is going to be an ongoing problem for folks because there really isn't a way to see who (instance) is talking to who (instance) (edit: incorrect; a user pointed out a place to check, but it isn't always going to be clear unless you constantly check). Without a platform wide policy of mutual, reciprocal defederation, there is going to be a lot of fractured discussion users will never be notified of.

*edit: may not be an issue with defed. See comment below.
- This page shows which instances we have blocked: https://lemmy.ca/instances
  
  there are somewhere where i can read why some instace are blocked?
  
  Oh sweet. That is way easier than what I just did. Updated my comment on not knowing.
  
  ~~Yup, that's the issue. Thanks!~~
  
  Err. Actually didn't read column headers. It says linked, so maybe a version issue / some other bug.
  
  Definitely not working from .world as I posted from an account there on this thread and it hasn't shown up. I haven't experienced this with any other instance yet, just .world
- @smorks is there a chance we defederated lemmy.world?
  
  There is a sailing community I engage with that is straight Lemmy.ca to Lemmy.world. Seems I get some federation but not all, so probably not a defed issue.
  
  Lemmy.world appears to be running out of date version of Lemmy (boo lemmy.world)
  
  Our admin might just be too on top of things for them to keep up.
  
  *edit: or maybe it is defed https://lemmy.ca/post/919062.
  
  *edit 2: Seems to be, I just tested on this thread from a .world account.
  
  *edit 3: not defed, just .world probably being hammered along with other Lemmy growing pains.
- What I have done is set up a lemmy.world account and follow posts I engaged with there if I care to keep up.
hmmm, that's a good question. seems to be stuff isn't federating properly. i'll do some investigation into it.
https://lemmy.world/post/594668

Link to the true post on lemmy.world

I couldn't find anything on lemmy.ml
- Sorry. You're right. I meant to type .world
  
  Actually it seems like the text post is on .ml and the picture is on .world
I'm experiencing the same problem right now. Whenever I got to my main page, for the past three days I just keep seeing the same top post. My subscriptions aren't coming through.

And today, I see a post from PC Master Race on lemmy.world with 1303 upvotes. But once I sign in and use Lemmy.ca, the number drops to 339.

The number of comments drop dramatically too.

https://lemmy.world/post/745993 vs https://lemmy.ca/post/977451
- Yeah I see it for a lot of different communities unfortunately...
In addition to all the comments about de-federation, there are a few other things too.

One, its the nature of federated services that it is asynchronous. Similarly if you send a large email, and most of your contacts are on @gmail it will show their practically immediately, and the guy on some other IMAP server will take slightly longer to get it and its replies, and if you have a one off on an old POP3 server, he could end up days out of sync.

Servers on the fediverse as a whole, and lemmy particularly, are on overdrive right now due to the increase in new users based on #RedditMigration that we weren't entirely prepared for. It will work out in the end, be patient!

Bonus: This type of "issue" makes flame wars far less likely.

50 comments