Your comments are stored on both. The “canonical” version would be on your home instance but every instance that is federated with your instance would get a copy of your comments. I think it’s even possible to have your content removed from one instance but not another. One of my posts shows as removed in the mod log but isn’t actually removed.
Comment on Spreading of the 100 biggest Lemmy communities
Scrollone@feddit.it 5 weeks agoIf the dbzer0 instance allows piracy talk but I’m signed up to an instance that doesn’t allow it, can I talk in their community or do I risk being banned from mine?
In other words, are my comments stored on their instance or on mine?
JackbyDev@programming.dev 5 weeks ago
Natanael@slrpnk.net 5 weeks ago
So by default your instance respect mod removals.
You can change that as a server admin, so comments would remain visible to other users on your instance.
I think your instance is authoritative for content of comments, but the community hosting instance is authoritative for which comments are approved (other instances respect such removals by default)
JackbyDev@programming.dev 5 weeks ago
That’s a good way of putting it. While my instance holds my canonical comments and the communiy’s instance holds the canonical list of comments on a post, if the community’s instance isn’t federated with my instance (or the pair temporarily cannot communicate) then my comments won’t show in the list.
pseudo@jlai.lu 5 weeks ago
That’s weird. @Natanael@slrpnk.net says the opposite is it a question of version?
JackbyDev@programming.dev 5 weeks ago
Alright. I wanted to verify something to double check. Here is the flow of how my comment gets to your instance and is visible by you. It helps when you realize that all communications you do are with your instance. I might get inbox/outbox terminology reversed or wrong.
- I post a comment to !fediverse@lemmy.world, but it is done through programming.dev/c/fediverse@lemmy.world. this goes to programming.dev’s inbox.
- Because lemmy.world is federated with programming.dev, they scoop up my comment from programming.dev’s outbox
- Because jlau.lu is federated with lemmy.world, they get my comment from lemmy.world.
- When you view !fediverse@lemmy.world through jlau.lu/c/fediverse@lemmy.world you will see my comment from your server’s copy of it.
I say the canonical copy is on my home instance because imagine a scenario where lemmy.world is NOT federated with programming.dev but for whatever reason programming.dev didn’t defederate back. I could still see and comment on !fediverse@lemmy.world. Other users of programming.dev could see my comments and reply, but nobody else.
This is how I understand federation to work but it might be incorrect. It’s a complicated topic. It might be that your instance directly gets the comment from mine.
pseudo@jlai.lu 5 weeks ago
I need to take time to read you comment quieltly. Honestly, I start to be confortable about how federation work from a user perspective but I have no technical knowledge about it.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 5 weeks ago
Test comment. Verifying something. Will reply in a separate one instead of editing this.
pseudo@jlai.lu 5 weeks ago
If you want to run some more test, here a community dedidacted to that: !testfediverse@jlai.lu.
You can be as thorough as you want without worrying about spamming people (^_^)
pseudo@jlai.lu 5 weeks ago
You can talk on their instance. If the moderator of your instance dis not wanted you to interact with this other instance they would have block it.
are my comments stored on their instance or on mine?
That I’m not sure. But I think there is a copy of the content you accessed on your instance. Maybe someone administrating an instance could answer you better than I did.
Natanael@slrpnk.net 5 weeks ago
Lemmy stores your posts and replies on both your host server and on the server of the community.
One interesting behavior to note here that is different from reddit is that while comments on reddit belong to the profile of the person commenting and is then imported to view in the subreddit (this is why you can edit comments after being banned, and why there visible in your profile even if removed from a subreddit), on lemmy the target community is instead authoritative and your host server will by default respect a deletion by community mods on different servers by also removing that comment from your profile.
pseudo@jlai.lu 5 weeks ago
Very interesting indeed. Thank you for letting us know.