SDF is defederated from thelemmy.club. When an SDF user searches specifically for !mildlyinfuriating@thelemmy.club or !Android@thelemmy.club, the search tool gives “no results”.
This is a user-hostile act. Refusing the inform the user is an assault on the user’s dignity. We know the community exists. What happens when the Lemmy server is proactively defederated with is that it will not connect to the defederated node even to check if a community exists. That’s all fair enough. But the user should be informed. Not just that the node is defederated but also the rationale. That’s necessary for respecting the user’s dignity. It’s disrespectful to the user to regard them as unworthy of information.
What should happen
The search tool should respond with:
“Unable to verify the existence of !mildlyinfuriating on thelemmy.club because thelemmy.club is defederated. The reason it is defederated is: ‘the host is mismanaged by pro-Trumper bootlicking nutters’” (for example -- whatever the admin wants to enter).
Bonus points for overachievers
It would be extra useful if the Lemmy backend could periodically grab a dataset from a directory service like Lemmyverse. It could then use that information to perform better and give better information. The search tool could then say “the community exists according to our records, but …”
10 Comments
AnchoriteMagus@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 5d
It was an assault on this user's dignity to have to read this.
Are you so upset because the guy that left the sandpaper on your toilet seat this morning is still out there?
evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org · -2 pts · 5d
Calm down. Try to make at least one point without using logical fallacy. Not sure why you think I am upset. Where are you getting that from?
mildseason@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 5d
Bit of an extreme way to phrase it but i do agree, more transparency around defederations would be a good thing.
However i dont think this is a bug. This is a natural feature of activityPub. There is nothing to fix to enable what you want. Developers would have to write new code to gather the info. Feels like you'd be better off making a feature request than a bug report.
evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org · -2 pts · 5d
I would call failing to inform the user a clear defect. It should in the very least supply the information it has. I believe defederating is done within the Lemmy server software, which knows which nodes are defederated. OTOH, it is possible for a Lemmy admin to not use that mechanism and to defederate using a firewall. In that case, the Lemmy software is limited (though it could still say something like “time out trying to reach the other host”).
Admins have reasons for defederating. I am not sure if Lemmy already captures that. There are various levels of effort that could be made in fixing the defect, but I’m calling it a defect because it has info that it is not sharing. I’m sure of that because it’s unlikely that all admins on all the nodes I am on are using just the firewall to defederate. SDF is in fact documented in a 3rd party dataset to be defederating with thelemmy.club.
IIRC, other software (e.g. Mastodon) has an API to query for nodes that are defederated and admins have a choice whether to expose the list. Lemmy devs neglected to use that mechanism, but the Lemmy server still maintains an internal list of defederated nodes IIUC.
(update) :::spoiler Lemmy history and cultural shift It’s worth noting as well that the Lemmy client has a long history of poor communication with the user. In the early versions, there was a hard-coded slur filter which was a shitty regular expression that often matched normal non-slur words. If you happened to use a word that hit (e.g. you said “grape” and the slur filter triggered on “rape”), Lemmy would simply do nothing when you click submit. No error, and no action. There were many such situations like that and cases where incorrect errors were given. They would often throw away all that the user wrote to give an error, and the back button would yield an empty form. Thus data loss. Not informing users is the style and pattern of the lemmy devs.
A lot of it got sorted out but there is a philosophical deficiet that needs a spotlight. Today’s users are being conditioned to accept poor treatment. There is a broad cultural problem when Firefox users are okay with Mozilla taking the stance that their web browser does not serve the user of the browser but rather the owner of the website being visited. It needs to be turned around so that once again people rally behind the idea that there is only one master and the tool should exclusively serve the user who executes it. :::
mildseason@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 5d
It's kind of a futile exercise because even if you could search communities on a defederated instance you wouldn't be able to subscribe to them because the servers are not sharing information. I can see why the devs would prioritize other work and leave it to 3rd party sites to display defederations.
I know the Lemmy devs are preparing to release v1.0.0 which has an improved API. You're right to highlight the issue. Hopefully this feature is implemented soon.
At the end of the day, Lemmy is free software and the devs are only paid through donations. I think it's to be expected that the software is not perfect but im still very grateful that it exists.
evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org · -2 pts · 4d
It’s not about the server making extra connections. The search failed to get results given a specific community name and location. The software knows why it failed. It is neglecting to pass that info on to the user. Giving specific error feedback is the sort of task that should be an automatic assumption when writing code. If a request has obvious potential to go unsatisfied, the programmer should expect that anomaly feedback will be expected. It’s the sort thing that should not even arise as a bug report.
Now to be clear, I reported this thinking that SDF was blocking thelemmy.club.. which would be fair enough if true, but it turns out not to be. kbin.cafe is the only expressely blocked instance. From there, it’s something else.. maybe a silent block by the firewall or a block by the other host.
mildseason@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 4d
Tbh i dont know the software well enough to comment. Hopefully it gets added soon!
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 5d
https://lemmy.sdf.org/instances. It's not hidden, it's linked in every page footer
evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org · -1 pts · 5d
I recall that some software supported that and some did not (lemmy vs kbin vs piefed... mastodon). mildseason wrote that Lemmy would have to gather info it does not have, which led me to think Lemmy was one of the pkgs that neglected the disclosure feature.
In the case of sdf, thelemmy.club is not on the blocked instance list. So there is a different problem with SDF. Which is exactly why it is important for the software to inform the user when a search for a fully qualified community name fails.
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 4d
Thelemmy.club is actually listed on the federated instances list. It looks like your admins have chosen to explicitly block those communities in particular. I'm not clear on the details, but I've not been hearing good things about the sdf lemmy (not sdf in general). You might want to consider a different instance with more transparent admin.