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”.
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”.
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…