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”.

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.worldEnglish
    32·
    3 days ago

    Its a design choice that is central to how the infrastructure of the fediverse works.

    And I disagree with your second statement.

    • 712@discuss.tchncs.deOPEnglish
      1·
      3 days ago

      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?

      • Widdershins@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        3 days ago

        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.

        • 712@discuss.tchncs.deOPEnglish
          1·
          3 days ago

          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.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

        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.

      • velma@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

        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.

        • 712@discuss.tchncs.deOPEnglish
          2·
          3 days ago

          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?

          • velma@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1·
            3 days ago

            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.

            • 712@discuss.tchncs.deOPEnglish
              2·
              3 days ago

              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.

              • velma@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                1·
                3 days ago

                There are ways for admins to step in on that kind of rule breaking, I believe. And I hope that’s true in the case that any CSAM might appear on Lemmy.

                Lol yeah, it really is a rehashing of freedom vs security, isn’t it?

                • 712@discuss.tchncs.deOPEnglish
                  2·
                  3 days ago

                  I see. I hope I’ll have more time to research how ActivityPub and Fediverse work. I’m sure people much smarter than me spent a lot more time thinking about these things than I have…😅