When I delete a comment on Lemmy, people can still see that there used to be a comment by me that I later deleted. What’s the reasoning for that?
Edit: changed “post” to “comment”.
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Federation. You delete something on your server, but the request to delete it doesn’t always get received by other servers. They could also just ignore the delete request.
A great example of how anything you post on the internet is there forever. Never assume it’s actually fully deleted.
True. But the fact that a removed comment in a post is displayed as “deleted by creator” is a choice of the Fediverse protocol, isn’t it?
That’s because you can’t truly delete a comment in a chain without breaking it.
If others replied to your comment, you deleting your comment would break the thread.
So a placeholder gets left behind.
placeholder deleted by comment
Wait hows that different than reddit? I know they arent federated so the server explanation doesnt apply but as for what is seen when deleted, didnt reddit always just say deleted, instead of deleted by owner? Its been a hot minute but didnt they also display removed when something was removed by mod or for breaking rules?
Yeah at least on old Reddit it shows something different depending on why the comment is no longer visible. So for example it says Unavailable if someone blocks you.
That display is dependent on your view into the fediverse. If it was deleted on your instance, yes. If viewed from a different instance, not necessarily…
It’s mostly to maintain the structure of a comment tree in my best guess. It’d be strange if a comment under your comment just bumped up the tree to being a reply to the person you were replying to.
Continuing to show your username on the deleted comment is a UX design choice that I understand and sympathise with questioning but it’s kind of irrelevant when you think about how ActivityPub and the Fediverse works.
Basically, even if Lemmy did hide your username, any ActivityPub server connected to any instance connected to your instance will have received that comment and you clicking “delete” is basically just asking everyone (possibly hundreds of servers) to please delete it. A server lagging behind on syncronisation, a server modified to discard delete requests (maybe for archival purposes) or even one that just pretends to delete comments for malicious purposes will still have that data
I guess a TL;DR would be that it’s a UX choice but kind of an ant hill compared to the mountain that is the Fediverse. It’s not a bad thing but it’s definitely a trade off you should keep in mind
Also your upvotes and downvotes are also public
Makes sense, thanks for explaining! I don’t know much about ActivityPub, but you explained this point well. Also good to know that upvotes and downvotes are public… 😄
Decentralization. It’s duplicated over onto other instances and it takes a while to show up somewhere other than where you posted and get deleted. There is also the possibility that an instance could not respect the deletion request or the request simply never makes it there.
We all want to know what you posted and deleted.
It helps readers to understand the comments replying to your comment, that were posted before it was deleted (by you or a mod)
Edit: added ‘Replying’ to make more sense
Nothing is ever deleted on the fediverse. Just because you ask a server to delete something, doesn’t mean it has to. You should assume everything you post/comment on the fediverse is permanent - like a tattoo to your account, it can only be edited over, but even then, there could be an instance out there just archiving everything.
I agree with this but it doesn’t fully explain why the comment itself gets removed while the fact that you commented doesn’t. If the explanation is deletion can’t be enforced across instances, why half-delete it? I think ultimately that’s just a design choice.
Not too sure on lemmy’s exact inner workings but I would imagine there is still a “pointer” to the content being loaded, except the content is now missing in this case?
Maybe! I also don’t know how things work under the hood.
Fair point, I guess. Also a bit scary. I sometimes read what I used to post on Facebook when I was 12 or 13 years old… 🤣
Yeah it is haha. Tbf you should also assume everything on the internet as a whole is permanent. Those posts are likely still on a server somewhere, regardless if you deleted them.
Yeah, well… Better not think about that too much 😂
I think it’s best we just maintain some recency bias when it comes to how harshly we judge people for their past internet behavior. If you were an asshole ten years ago and haven’t acted that way recently, I’ll just assume you were 12. We were all 12 once.
you can purge your replies on piefed as long as nobody replied yet
Why can’t comments be fully deleted on Lemmy?
When I delete a post on Lemmy, people can still see that there used to be a comment by me that I later deleted. What’s the reasoning for that?
1 make post with question
2 get answer
3 delete questionThe people from step 2 are getting tired of answering the same question that could have been answered if the original question was still up. What part of crowdsourced answer screams private question?
Yeah I totally get that. But what about comments I make on a thread that noone has replied to. Completely deleting those wouldn’t harm anyone.
Its a design choice that is central to how the infrastructure of the fediverse works.
And I disagree with your second statement.
What’s the harm if I post “test” under a post without comments and then delete this comment one second later, without anyone having engaged with it?
What’s the harm if you leave it up? I would rather see graffiti on a building than the sandblasted outline of where the graffiti was.
Yes, if I need to choose between the graffiti and the sandblasted outline of it, I’d also pick the graffiti. But if I could power wash the graffiti and make it non-conceivable, I’d prefer that.
I mean you are more than welcome to make that not the case. The git hub repo is right there. Fork it and make it your own.
It’s the principle of it. Start making exceptions for certain comments to be deleted then where is the line drawn? Easier to have it so nothing is ever truly deleted.
Hmm, but why does a social media need to be an immutable storage? I feel like I’m missing something here.
I know some people are against any form of censorship and yes, I see the problem with the question of who can decide what gets deleted when. I’m totally on board here. But is “nothing should ever be deleted” really the best approach?
Genuine question: if someone doxes your address on Lemmy, wouldn’t you want to be able to get it deleted?
Genuine question: if someone doxes your address on Lemmy, wouldn’t you want to be able to get it deleted?
The someone still has my address, right? Getting it off Lemmy doesn’t really do much.
I think that people using the Fediverse generally want there to be more transparency and more control by the users and less in the hands of a few admins. We’ve all seen how Reddit took control over users info and comments over the years. There’s a push here to not let that happen.
Well it would prevent others from getting to know your address, preventing harm. Transparency is good, but I’m just afraid that immutable transparency easily be exploited by ill-minded people.
There’s a similar debate in blockchain, where people have put CSAM into the Bitcoin blockchain where it will be forever stored.
I guess it’s the old debate of freedom vs security.
More transparency, I believe.
I can understand it if the comment is part of a thread. But I think comments without replies should be fully deletable.
Then go back to Reddit, I guess? I swear I’m not saying that in a snarky way. But nothing is ever truly deleted even if you can’t see it on your profile anymore.
I don’t wanna go back to Reddit. I know what you mean when you say “nothing is ever truly deleted”, but there is a difference between a comment being displayed as “deleted by creator” and the comment not being displayed at all while still existing under the hood.
There are some instances that allow you to hide your deleted comments and posts, but it’s really just hiding it from yourself. Because of the way different instances are federated, your comments may still appear in other places even after you’ve deleted it. Smarter people than myself can explain it better.
guess you should edit and then delete it.
Nahh it doesn’t make a difference.
Developer opinion. It used to work like that, but they changed it a few months ago. I don’t know why they chose this behavior, and personally I disagree with it. If a comment has no replies, just delete it entirely.
Glad to hear I’m not the only one who thinks a comment without replies could be deleted entirely with no harm done… 😄
