Hi, I’m new to the fediverse and trying to wrap my head around lemmy specifically.
If i’m signed into an account on beehaw.org and post to a community on lemmy.ml, is my post/comment saves on beehaw.org or lemmy.ml’s server? I understand that it will be federated between both servers but I’m curious which database the post lives i’m. Or is it replicated across both.
And do other federated services work the same way, like mastodon?
Thanks for the help in understanding this stuff!
If you’re on beehaw, then beehaw is the source of truth for your posts. Other instances (such as lemmy.ml) will see and store copies of your content (and can choose to reject it outright), but the original is always your own instance.
Ah got it thanks. Then does the !community I’m posting to just act as a tag to stay organized and help others find the post? Or is it used in the federation of the post to other servers?
For example, from my account on beehaw.org I post to !lemmy_support@lemmy.ml. This writes to beehaw.org’s database and lets lemmy.ml know about the new post (lemmy.ml saves a copy). Do other instances who have a user subscribed to !lemmy_support@lemmy.ml reach out to lemmy.ml to get a list of posts under that community? Or do other instances reach out to beehaw.org to see if there are any posts to !lemmy_support@lemmy.ml?
I guess I’m mostly just confused on how !communities are used in the federation process.
What a lemmy group does is something akin to “boosting” any content published to it.
So, lets say you make your post from beehaw to lemmy_support on lemmy.ml. lemmy_support will see your post and then “boost” it, so anyone that follows lemmy_support (ie, is subscribed to it) will see the “boost” (though it doesn’t look like a boost through the specialised lemmy interface).
Your post will be stored on both instances. Any media like pictures or videos will only be stored on your instance. Media will be referenced if the content is being viewed on another instance. At least I think so.
Pretty much both, from what I’ve seen running my own instance. Should be the same for any other activitypub service to my knowledge!
