please remove the AI sentence before the questions in your post
this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2025
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Asklemmy
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I don't know all the details, but it looks like every federated server will save its own copy of the now-deleted server's posts in its archives. Here's a post from lemm.ee that's still visible on Hexbear as an example. Given this knowledge, I bet you could recreate lemm.ee with a script that gets the data from all of the servers it was federated with.
When a post is created, is it only stored on the original instance, or copied to every other one?
Copied
- Do all federated servers get a copy, or get posts from other server when user demands them?
They get copies of all posts from communities their users subscribe to.
- When an instance shuts down, is its content gone forever, or do other instances keep copies?
The copies remain. But new comments or posts won't federate to other copies.
- Is there any kind of “shared” storage in the Fediverse, or network that store everything?
No,
- Could one still access all lemm.ee content now? Or post in it's communities?
Yes, as long as an instance that was around long enough to federate with it still exists. You can browse from SJW for example.
I’m new to this place…I still have no idea what’s going on and little idea of what an instance or my instance is.
…but I’m an OG internet user and what you’re describing sounds like ~~EchoNet~~ FidoNet?, or one of the various networked BBS systems pre-internet. BBSs, or groups of BBSs would frequently drop in and out of the networks, and the forums/threads from the absent BBSs would still be there…but in a “cleaved” state. Very confusing to a user who used multiple ‘Nets (which was everybody).
What is SJW?
His instance and mine, "sh.itjust.works" was federated with lemm.ee
I missed one:
If the original server is gone, what happens to edits or deletions?
Edits or posts made after the server is gone? They don't federate out past your instance.