• Square Singer@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Two things: the data on the instance will be gone.

    The posts/comments that were replicated on other instances will stay, but they will be defederated, meaning they will not ever be synced up woth other instances’ replications of these posts/comments. Every instance will just have their own, insular copy.

    • jaamulberry @beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      I see this as a big issue for content going forward. I get that reddit is one single point of failure but I wonder how you can keep knowledge in a static state when most instances lose money and it’s a hobby. What happens when the owner grows tired.

      • Big P@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        Could also be an issue from a data privacy perspective. If I want to delete comments I left, but the instance I made them on has shut down how can I delete them?

        • jaamulberry @beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          It’s not about visiting a forum post I made in 2007. It’s about visiting a forum post about an obscure issue that someone solved in 2007.

            • Wahots@pawb.social
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              1 year ago

              This is so stupidly relevant to strange motherboard problems. I hope that lemmy is able to be scraped by web crawlers to help assist with these sorts of problems in the future.

          • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            1 year ago

            That part won’t change. If your current instance was federated with an obscure community/instance before that community/instance disappeared, then you will still have the content from back then and will be able to find the discussion and solution

              • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                1 year ago

                Well no, but then you weren’t going to find it anyway, even if the other instance was still around

                • jaamulberry @beehaw.org
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                  1 year ago

                  I would argue the instance still gets indexed by Google and if it was around I could Google search for the result.

                  • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                    1 year ago

                    Ok, but in that instance, unless that niche instance that disappeared never federated with anyone, then their content is going to be available on the instances they did federate with before they went away, and those will continue to show in google

          • capacitor@reddthat.com
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            1 year ago

            It would certainly be nice to replace stack overflow with a good Lemmy instance, but have the data guaranteed to remain around.

          • Square Singer@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            That still works with replication. What won’t work is having any discussion going forward be replicated over all replications. But the replication works fine for archival purpouses.

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Perhaps each client should keep data. Something like a blockchain, with redundant copies stored on clients and clients using some consensus protocol to agree on what the real history is.

        • Square Singer@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          Blockchain is the worst possible solution for this. There are much better versions of this.

          Also, no need for clients to keep gigabytes or even terrabytes of data. That’s what you have instances for.

    • spider@lemmy.nz
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      1 year ago

      but they will be defederated, meaning they will not ever be synced up with other instances’ replications of these posts/comments.

      Indeed; lost my VLemmy account when it shut down.

      My comments from there still appear in other instances, but my comment totals are different depending on which instance they’re viewed in.

    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Do the copies on other instances ever expire and get cleared? Or will they stay indefinitely, without updates?

      • Square Singer@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Number 2. They will stay without updates unless an admin cleans it manually. It wouldn’t be hard to build a bot to do that automatically, but by default it will just stay.