<![CDATA[So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social.]]>So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. Crazy.

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/topic/f85dd0fb-045b-4238-bfdc-efe704a52295/so-on-my-oni-instance-that-i-ve-been-use-as-an-alternative-fediverse-profile-for-myself-for-about-two-years-the-full-storage-used-is-about-3.4g-but-out-of-that-there-s-2.5g-containing-mostly-the-delete-activities-of-mastodon.social.RSS for NodeFri, 05 Jun 2026 23:27:52 GMTFri, 29 May 2026 09:04:28 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 12:40:19 GMT]]>@hongminhee @steve @nick

I think the claim being made is that Delete shouldn't be widely federated in the first place.

What you propose can help reduce the load from "everyone I know" toward "everyone I know who should have a copy", but at some point we really ought to consider that maybe a Create activity or an HTTP GET shouldn't result in indefinite syndication. In the case of HTTP GET you can use an HTTP cache, at least -- and the default lifetime shouldn't be "forever".

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://mastodon.social/users/trwnh/statuses/116663570906103840https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://mastodon.social/users/trwnh/statuses/116663570906103840Sat, 30 May 2026 12:40:19 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 08:19:11 GMT]]>@steve Also I'm not a theoretician, I don't like to think ahead 10 moves, analyse things, and put them on paper. That's just not how my brain works.

As you can probably infer from my previous comments, I speak about stuff when they affect me in a pragmatic way.

My basic thesis about my work on ActivityPub is: when you participate in a network make your participation the least disruptive for the other nodes: don't overshare, don't force them to process things when they don't expect them. (Another expression of the first part of Postel's law, if you will)

Being asked to justify it seems bonkers to me, it feels to be as self evident as any axiom. 🙂

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662544051238950https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662544051238950Sat, 30 May 2026 08:19:11 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 08:08:26 GMT]]>@steve why do you consider this to be a "complex problem"?

From where I stand Deletes are a courtesy signal to the network that a node is gone, nothing more.

Only a fool would base their network consistency logic around Deletes only. (I would go one further and say this applies to all received activities, not just deletes)

And as long as an adjacent mechanism (which is fetching the node itself) exists, why make a big deal out of the situation?

@nick

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662501809686476https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662501809686476Sat, 30 May 2026 08:08:26 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 08:00:33 GMT]]>@mariusor @nick I saw that answer. I'm always skeptical when someone claims they have a trivial solution to a complex problem without providing any details. I agree that it seems superficially less complicated. Not federating Deletes at all is even simpler with less edge cases, but I wouldn't recommend it. As I suggested earlier, I think an FEP or even a blog article is a better medium for supporting your suggested approach with analysis, tradeoff identification, examples, risks, and so on.

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://social.technoetic.com/users/steve/statuses/116662470778421054https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://social.technoetic.com/users/steve/statuses/116662470778421054Sat, 30 May 2026 08:00:33 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 07:50:09 GMT]]>@steve in my perspective designing a dissemination strategy on "what ifs" is a sure way to overcomplicate things, because in something as complex as ActivityPub you can come up with many corner-cases, and dealing with them all is a fool's errand.

See my sibling answer to Hong about why following/followers lists should be the default.

@nick

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662429886997283https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662429886997283Sat, 30 May 2026 07:50:09 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 07:47:46 GMT]]>@hongminhee to me that's too much logic to stuff in an already complicated machine.

Just send the Delete to the smallest set of parties you absolutely **know** as being directly interested: the people that would send something your way: your following list. As a courtesy you can do it to the people that follow you, so they know to purge you from their list.

Everyone else will suffer a 404 and deal with it to the best of their abilities, which should be way less complicated than the rube goldberg'esque setups you guys seem to favour.

@steve @nick

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662420534364969https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662420534364969Sat, 30 May 2026 07:47:46 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 07:40:00 GMT]]>@steve@social.technoetic.com @mariusor@metalhead.club @nick@hhmx.de Most deletes happen soon after posting, before many non-followers have fetched the object. Most posts are never boosted anyway. So maybe: if a post has never received an Announce, send the Delete only to followers; once it has, fall back to the current wider delivery.

The obvious race is a boost arriving just before the delete, but I think that still mostly works. The server receiving the Announce has to fetch the original, and by then it should get a 404 Not Found.

That would avoid a lot of unnecessary Delete fanout.

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://hollo.social/@hongminhee/019e77d3-5bd5-78f4-a716-6df013994b11https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://hollo.social/@hongminhee/019e77d3-5bd5-78f4-a716-6df013994b11Sat, 30 May 2026 07:40:00 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 07:26:47 GMT]]>@mariusor @nick I don't know. See my comments about *boosting* where you may have cached entity without receiving a Create. Nick mentioned other examples (manual activity fetch, etc.).

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://social.technoetic.com/users/steve/statuses/116662337994741577https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://social.technoetic.com/users/steve/statuses/116662337994741577Sat, 30 May 2026 07:26:47 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 07:19:24 GMT]]>@steve yes, the actor ones are the most egregious, because additionally to just wasting disk space, they waste resources when the instances try to dereference the actors that own the HTTP-Signature that signed the Delete and find them gone.

@nick

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662308983508363https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662308983508363Sat, 30 May 2026 07:19:24 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 07:17:47 GMT]]>@steve 2.5GB of activitypub data out of a total of 3.4GB is not waste when I haven't seen the Creates that generated those Deleted entities?

@nick

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662302649841030https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662302649841030Sat, 30 May 2026 07:17:47 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 07:14:31 GMT]]>@mariusor @nick "Scattershot and wasting everyone's time" is an opinion. Some people may appreciate the extra effort to make Deletes more effective. I'd hope an implementation that makes minimal effort to make Delete effective would clearly disclose that to admins and users.

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://social.technoetic.com/users/steve/statuses/116662289795800249https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://social.technoetic.com/users/steve/statuses/116662289795800249Sat, 30 May 2026 07:14:31 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 07:11:17 GMT]]>@mariusor @nick I had already read that. You discuss "Deletes", in general, but maybe you only meant "actor deletes"?

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://social.technoetic.com/users/steve/statuses/116662277070654689https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://social.technoetic.com/users/steve/statuses/116662277070654689Sat, 30 May 2026 07:11:17 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 07:09:19 GMT]]>@steve so between impractical, minimal effectiveness, and scattershot wasting everyone's resources and time, which one is better in your opinion?

@nick

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662269346942620https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662269346942620Sat, 30 May 2026 07:09:19 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 07:07:37 GMT]]>@steve then you should read my top post, to which
@nick was replying.

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662262666548214https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662262666548214Sat, 30 May 2026 07:07:37 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 07:05:59 GMT]]>@mariusor @nick AFAICT, Fediverse Delete is practically going to be "best effort" and not complete. The question is how much effort is an implementation willing to make. Only sending a Delete to followers and following collections seems to me to be minimal effort with minimal effectiveness. On the high effort side, an implementation could track every domain that's ever fetched a specific document and send Deletes to those. However, that's doesn't seem practical.

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://social.technoetic.com/users/steve/statuses/116662256226371028https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://social.technoetic.com/users/steve/statuses/116662256226371028Sat, 30 May 2026 07:05:59 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 07:05:13 GMT]]>@mariusor @nick No, not suggesting that at all. *Boosts* will cause an activity to be be fetched by servers that aren't directly known to the original actor. (I have no idea what you're talking about wrt deleted actors.)

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://social.technoetic.com/users/steve/statuses/116662253195784636https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://social.technoetic.com/users/steve/statuses/116662253195784636Sat, 30 May 2026 07:05:13 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 06:53:42 GMT]]>@steve I'm not sure I understand your question. What does a popular account posting have to do with the dissemination list of Delete activities? Are you suggesting that the problem is that they're sending to deleted actors? Perfect, now the server knows to stop sending there.

@nick

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662207913896907https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116662207913896907Sat, 30 May 2026 06:53:42 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Sat, 30 May 2026 06:41:12 GMT]]>@mariusor @nick How does fetching the actor's current state help with knowing the original distribution of an activity? What happens when a popular follower boosts a post to thousands of their followers and to many servers (and their followers re-boost to yet more servers, etc.). There are also relays that may have forwarded an activity to many servers and is now no longer active to forward Deletes. If your trivial solution is effective, I'd like to see a full description/analysis in an FEP.

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://social.technoetic.com/users/steve/statuses/116662158800185975https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://social.technoetic.com/users/steve/statuses/116662158800185975Sat, 30 May 2026 06:41:12 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Fri, 29 May 2026 20:10:00 GMT]]>@deutrino I know, I know, I'm the biggest complainer about Mastodon's lack of effort when it comes to better support the specification. I suspect everyone in their team has me on mute already. 😄

@toddsundsted

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116659676807910939https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116659676807910939Fri, 29 May 2026 20:10:00 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Fri, 29 May 2026 18:31:49 GMT]]>@mariusor @toddsundsted Mastodon hasn't ever been known for being efficient or elegant, and after being here for a decade I don't see that ever changing

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://mstdn.io/users/deutrino/statuses/116659290721015287https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://mstdn.io/users/deutrino/statuses/116659290721015287Fri, 29 May 2026 18:31:49 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Fri, 29 May 2026 11:31:58 GMT]]>@toddsundsted I'm considering adding extra logic to the Delete workflow so if the Deleted object does not exist locally (previously fetched or created) the Delete doesn't get processed or persisted...

@nick

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116657639849257726https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116657639849257726Fri, 29 May 2026 11:31:58 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Fri, 29 May 2026 11:00:24 GMT]]>@nick none of those actions can't be solved by trying to fetch the actor before operating them.

Also having requests fail should not be an issue for any clients. Receiving 404 and 403 responses is just a normal day on the internet.

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116657515695374431https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://metalhead.club/users/mariusor/statuses/116657515695374431Fri, 29 May 2026 11:00:24 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Fri, 29 May 2026 10:59:18 GMT]]> ktistec has an ActivityPub "garbage collector". i think i'm just going to tune it to delete older Delete activities. other than archeology, i don't see a ton of value in keeping these around... 🤷

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://epiktistes.com/objects/y64Rw_mXvtYhttps://bb.devnull.land/post/https://epiktistes.com/objects/y64Rw_mXvtYFri, 29 May 2026 10:59:18 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to So on my ONI instance that I've been use as an alternative fediverse profile for myself for about two years, the full storage used is about 3.4G, but out of that there's 2.5G containing mostly the Delete activities of mastodon.social. on Fri, 29 May 2026 10:49:51 GMT]]>@mariusor@metalhead.club

Unfortunately not so simple.

Followship may vary over time.
Accounts could be remotely resolved by fetching conversations.
Accounts could be remotely resolved manually.
Accounts could have sent an answer to someone with no relationship.
And so on.

@toddsundsted@epiktistes.com

]]>https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://hhmx.de/users/nick/notes/2430886https://bb.devnull.land/post/https://hhmx.de/users/nick/notes/2430886Fri, 29 May 2026 10:49:51 GMT