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Forgive what is probably a silly naive question...
Can someone point me to an explanation of the federated architecture of lemmy? I haven't found one yet that has helped me build a good mental model. I either get a step-by-step startup guide, or discussions on the merrits/demerits of a distributed system.
I think I've pieced together that it's basically independent "instances" of the machine each with their own communities within. Sort of like if there were multiple instances of reddit, each with its own r/aww or whatever. I don't yet understand, however how these interact/relate/ovelap/collaborate...which I think is the basis for this thread.
when a user (let's call them Kim) on one instance (let's call it "Works"), subscribes to a community on another (let's call that one "World"), Works creates a copy of the community on its own database. It also asks World to notify it when there is an update to the community -- when there is a new post, new comment, up/downvote, something gets deleted, etc. Kim can now browse and interact with the community on Works. Works will also notify World when Kim does something in the community so everything syncs and everyone sees the same thing.
So really, the problem OP is describing is simply a natural consequence of communities not existing on Works until someone subscribes to it.
Thanks, this makes sense. So, the last thing I'm wondering about is the redundancy/exclusivity of communities. For example, could there be a community called 'gardening' on the "Works" instance and also an independent community by the same name on "World" (before anyone is mutuallt subscribed)? Seems like it could... And if so, what happens when someone cross subscribes to 'gardening'.
Specifically, (from a user experience standpoint) do these redundant communities coelesce into one? Because some of the benefit of these communities (particularly the more niche) is pulling together the experts into one community.
The gardening community on World will be called gardening@World on Works. they will continue to be distinct communities, and you can subscribe to either or both independently
https://lemm.ee/post/37715