How do I properly link to a post? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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So I know about /c/[email protected] for communities and /u/[email protected] for users, but how do I link to individual posts in a way that won't be a hassle for people in other instances?

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[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

So we've figured out what the rainbow and regular link icons do. But that doesn't answer OP's question.

I've tried linking with just the /post/<ID>, linking with /post<ID>@<instance>, and no luck so far. This must be possible somehow!

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

it ought to be something simple like /p/<ID>

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Problem is posts have a different ID on each instance they federate to. It's a bit of a bugger.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It seems dumb to me that the fediverse doesn't use UUIDs

[-] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Yeah I wonder if the logic is that since instances don't know about each other (until, of course, they do) it would be possible to have duplicate IDs betwixt them so would be inherently unreliable. Idk, hopefully all of this gets sorted out by someone way smarter than me.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

UUIDs are a computer science concept where you use some math and some black magic to guarantee that you have generated a unique identifier, even in an environment with federation. This concept predates the fediverse since this is needed for lots of different use-cases. Basically anything with horizontal scaling, orchestration, or p2p needs something like this in order to prevent collisions.