How does the modlog work across different instances and fedi software? (piefed.zip)

submitted 1 week ago by felsiq@piefed.zip to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I don’t understand the modlog behaviour and didn’t find any posts explaining it in a search, so I’m hoping someone more familiar with the fediverse backend(s) can explain it. General answers would be great, but I’ll put the specific context I’m not understanding as well in case that’s relevant:

context

I’m trying to find the reason a specific comment by another user was removed, but the modlog on piefed.zip for that user is empty. I figured that just meant mod actions don’t federate, which makes sense, but I also don’t see the removal in the lemmy.world modlog (the instance for both that user and the community the comment was in). If mod actions don’t federate then I assume it can’t be in the modlog of some third unrelated instance, which seems to rule out all other options and shows my understanding of the situation is clearly wrong in some way. I’m not linking the user or the post to try to avoid dogpiling of the user and/or the mod, and to keep the focus on the question rather than the comment’s content, but if it’s somehow relevant please let me know

top 9 comments

sorted by: hot top new old

[-] Pika@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Very poorly.

mod logs Imo shouldn't be used as an accurate source of current information because they very commonly will be desynced/not up to date. But it seems to be by an instance by instance basis, and sometimes even a community by community.

what is supposed to happen is a mod action is performed and then logged. And then instances can then see that action, but it desyncs constantly

as you've experienced firsthand, it can be quite useless at times, especially if you're looking for information that was performed somewhat recently with somewhat recent being within the last couple days.

[-] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

A person makes a post that violates a rule, the post gets reported, and then a mod removes it. Using a rule from this community as an example:

This is not a support community.

It is not a place for ‘how do I?’, type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself...

The rest of the demonstration will probably happen later.

[-] felsiq@piefed.zip 3 points 1 week ago

I don’t see how this is a “how do I?” type question at all - I read thru the community rules before posting to make sure and didn’t spot anything I felt this post would be violating. I’m asking about the mechanics of mod action federation on the fediverse, not for any sort of support or site specific answers

[-] okwhateverdude@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

There could be federation delay between mod actions. The source code doesn't make it immediately obvious, but it looks like all activities are delivered to various inboxes, including moderation actions. Workers and polling could potentially make this stochastic.

EDIT: This was looking at the Lemmy source code (in rust). piefed source is in python. It could also be a bug in the interaction between those different implementations

[-] felsiq@piefed.zip 2 points 1 week ago

I wonder if the empty piefed.zip modlog is a lemmy/piefed federation issue then? The user account I’m looking at to test this has many mod actions going back years on the .world side, but none at all on piefed.zip. Meanwhile on lemmy.zip, many (but not all) of the .world mod actions are federated so something does seem to be fucky between the lemmy/piefed modlogs.

Either way, there seems to be at least one aspect of the modlog federation that’s very unclear (at least to me) which is why I was hoping someone with more knowledge of it could give a general overview of how it all works lol

[-] okwhateverdude@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Yeah, really solving this will require deeper code spelunking than I did. If you checkout both repos and point a robot at it asking it specifically to trace the modlog federation, you might get a better answer. You could also empirically debug this by setting up a couple of instances, federate them, and see what happens.

[-] wjs018@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago

Nothing to do with federation. piefed.zip decided not to make their modlog public. It's an admin setting within piefed. IIRC, it isn't an option in lemmy.

[-] felsiq@piefed.zip 2 points 1 week ago

Ohhh thank you this explains a lot!

[-] Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Sigh, Rule 5 definitely needs clarifying....

this post was submitted on 06 May 2026

5 points (85.7% liked)

Ask Lemmy

39518 readers

1300 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

6) No US Politics.

Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.