This is the reason:
Looks like the PieFed's old post deletion does not take into account whether a poster is local to a deleting instance or external to it.
At least one banger of mine on this comm is already affected.
Memes on piefed.zip should be safe.
I've never used Piefed, so I have so many questions:
Does it do that by default? Is it something you can toggle on/off? Why would anyone want it to do that?
Fwiw, !fedimemes@feddit.uk (where this community is located and where OP said they lost a banger) is a LEMMY instance. They run a custom UI frontend and backend both currently based off of version 0.19.17 (UI: 0.19.17-2-g4f0da5f5 & BE: 0.19.17-feddit) - see admin's response to my comment below.
This entire post ends up being a little bit misinformation, sadly, as the phenomena has virtually nothing to do with PieFed, except that is the software that OP's instance just so happens to run - and even there (highly ironically) OP themselves mentions that their instance (PieFed.zip) does not delete old meme posts.
Lemmy might have to do it with externalized automated modbots whereas PieFed offers the community mods a configuration option to do it for them inside the instance software itself - that's all? Edit: oh wait, one more thing: in formalizing the process, it also ensures accurate reporting of the phenomena in the sidebar area. I recall on multiple occasions being surprised when my Lemmy memes disappeared, and managed to "discover" their rule for post deletion despite not being told in advance (or maybe it was in an old pinned post or something, but not easily findable in the sidebar).
But meme communities on PieFed.zip should be perfectly safe, at least as safe as on lemmy.zip, and due to the migration feature (remember lemm.ee?), actually far more so.
That said, Rimu's joking around about Lemmy content aside, the specific PieFed.social instance indeed is truly not as friendly towards meme content, so yes best to avoid migrating meme communities to there if you want the posts to last longer. Each instance owner sets their own policies as to what they want to do with their hardware, and that is what he wants.
PieFed.zip on the other hand is very open to receiving such. So it's not "PieFed" that is against memes, just one of the quirks about the specific instance of PieFed.social.
Indeed, I posted that from .zip, just in case.
It is off by default. Admins can set the content retention policy on any community.
On piefed.social I've set pretty much every meme, shitpost and anime community to expire after one year or less. Check the sidebar of the community to see, it's beneath the moderator list.
Good to know. Is that only in the local sidebar or does the retention policy federate with the community info?
I'm not super active in meme communities, but would be nice to know they're on a ticking clock before I do post something. That, or I just avoid Piefed communities.
All piefed.social communities have infinite retention. Our stuff is high quality and worth keeping forever, it's just the trashy Lemmy content that gets deleted ;-)
Some PieFed stuff, like this, that or that has been already deleted from PieFed. Discussion and links survive on a comm instance but images don't (Lemmy does not cache images).
Filed a bug about it.
Save on space. It's set up on a community-by-community basis. It's turned on for a bunch of meme communities on piefed.social and some caustic ones.