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.
He either didn’t or is intentionally ignoring the points they made and his aggressive responses here are just riling people up even more instead of focusing us on the actual problem or solutions. People are literally calling beehaw admins “vile” and “despicable” just because they are trying to handle this unexpected and possibly undesired huge influx of people, when their community existed before any of these newcomers arrived (myself included) and their primary concern should be preserving their community and ethos.
This is specifically the type of behavior that beehaw’s rules aim to prevent, which is why they are more heavily moderated and why they had to defederate lemmyworld in the first place. The fact that OP is unable to understand this and is instead trying to start a lynch mob just makes me think that a temporary defederation was absolutely the right call to make for them.
right? it wasn’t anywhere near a big deal or an insult to other instances
it’s “we don’t have the resources to handle any possible bad actors from big instances with loose registration requirements, so we’re defederating from them until we feel that we can handle it”
the correct response to this is “oh, okay; hope they figure it out such that they can federate with us again in the future”; people are blowing this out of proportion
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bro, its not gaslighting
no one said youre not allowed to be upset, you just have to deal with it as the nature of this specific platform. it may suck but thats life.
just gotta interact with other communities, bring the vibes up in other communities and it will soon no longer matter
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its not gas lighting. the term “gaslighting” to refer to a specific type of manipulation where the manipulator is trying to get someone else (or a group of people) to question their own reality, memory or perceptions.
the bees aint making you question reality
what they are doing may be a mistake and misguided, but again, this is a decentralized/federated social media platform. they get to do that
the beauty of it, if we can focus on the communities in lemmy.world and other places that are federated here, it wont matter in the end. you will still be serviced content and comments
i dunno man, its not personal is all im sayin
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lol ok man sure
ill leave you be i guess, im not here to argue
but its objectively not gaslighting
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You know, I keep hearing this, but it’s beehaw people coming here and starting arguments. If it’s not a problem, then why are people getting annoyed? Beehaw is allowed to defederate if they really think so, but we don’t have to pretend like it’s a smart decision. And, at the end of the day, it only hurts them more than anyone else.
The only thing I’m seeing in these lemmyworld threads is people being extremely hostile and rude towards beehaw admins, not showing an ounce of understanding for what is probably a very difficult situation for them too. Not to mention that most of them are brand new accounts as well, calling out admins that have been developing the community and managing beehaw for over a year. In less then a week people with 0 patience or empathy are already drawing lines in the sand instead of trying to help and work towards a solution instead.
I don’t believe you to be honest. I haven’t seen any hostility towards beehaw admins, or any toxicity whatsoever on the fediverse at all, whether lemmy.world or otherwise. You claim that the only thing you see is people being extremely hostile. So where are they?
https://kbin.social/m/lemmyworld@lemmy.world/t/24341/How-the-beehaw-defederation-affects-us#entry-comment-125843 Calling it a “bitch” move
https://kbin.social/m/lemmyworld@lemmy.world/t/24341/How-the-beehaw-defederation-affects-us#entry-comment-121608 “an incredibly selfish, disphit move”
https://kbin.social/m/lemmyworld@lemmy.world/t/24341/How-the-beehaw-defederation-affects-us#entry-comment-106166 calling the admins “dumb” for their decision by the OP of this thread
https://kbin.social/m/lemmyworld@lemmy.world/t/24341/How-the-beehaw-defederation-affects-us#entry-comment-98246 calling it “vile” with that whole chain devolving into weird allegories and innuendos
My threads are getting messed up and im seeing tons of duplicate or unorganized posts so ill stop here. Besides browse it yourself for the general atmosphere, you’re seeing the same content I do and I’m not sure why are you oblivious to this and the general vibe here.
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Kbin is my local instance from which I am browsing, the links lead to posts made by authors from other instances too. The very first one is from lemmy.world for example.
Not sure how it matters for the discussion even if what you said were true though.
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The links are a little confusing looking, but they’re to (or meant to be to) comments from some Lemmy folks across a few different instances. First & third are lemmy.world, second is lemmy.pt, and fourth is from programming.dev.