Maybe this post would be more at home on a lemmy.ml community, or on github, but this place is my home and I feel like I'd like to get opinions here first :o)
Right now, there is no way to make an instance agnostic link for a post or comment, like you can do with users or communities. Each instance assigns its own number to posts and comments, and there isn't really an easy way to find a post or comment on one instance when starting from another.
For example, if I get a lemmy.world link to a post in a lemmy.world community, in order for me to comment from lemm.ee I would first have to go to lemm.ee/c/community@lemmy.world, then find the post in there manually. If I want to reply to a specific comment, I would have to find the post on lemm.ee in this way, then also search that thread for the comment. If you're looking for an old post with a lot of comments, this can be quite challenging.
Instead, I think lemmy needs to revise how it numbers comments and posts, using the same system used for users and communities. Rather than every instance using a different number, they should use the federated host's number followed by @hostinstance. The local user would still see the original federated link, but users from other instances would see it in their own instance with a tag for the federated host instance. This way, anyone could easily edit any link to make it work in their own instance (provided that link has already been federated in their own instance).
Here is a specific example I wrote in a comment elsewhere:
For a specific example, to me, this post is https://lemm.ee/post/1726780. In the original, federated instance, the post is https://lemmy.ml/post/2308622. Instead, it should appear to me as https://lemm.ee/post/2308622@lemmy.ml.
Your comment, to me, is https://lemm.ee/comment/1409174. The federated link is https://lemmy.one/comment/1393053. This is the link you see, and should continue to see, but I should see https://lemm.ee/comment/1393053@lemmy.one.
Using the instance in the numbering scheme means each federated host instance manages its own numbering while ensuring there will never be a clash between instances. https://lemm.ee/comment/1393053@lemmy.one and https://lemm.ee/comment/1393053 would refer to two completely different comments. This information is already being transmitted in the process of federation, so it’s just a matter of tagging the data when it’s received.
honestly i think it should be more like this (or this)
i know people don't like to talk about reddit, but the URLs were perfect. i could see whether a post was the one i wanted just from the url, and if i wanted a shorter link i could just omit the title and it would soft redirect
i would much prefer https://lemm.ee/post/2308622/reddit-has-started-assigning-power-mods@lemmy.ml [^1] so i know the topic of a post before even loading the page and wasting my time and data
but yes, i agree this is an issue that should have been solved already
[^1]: or even https://lemm.ee/c/snoopocalypse/post/2308622/reddit-has-started-assigning-power-mods@lemmy.ml actually. i know minimalism is trendy these days, but seeing as much info at a glance is really useful in my opinion
I agree with that, however I think that's a separate issue to federation and instance agnostic links. Fixing both at the same time sure would be efficient, though.
Edit: Also, what's with the #fnref1 tag at the end of your URL and the symbol at the end? How did
[^1]do that??Edit2: Ohhhh I think I see now, citations, with a link back to the position the citation was in. That looks really good for long comments.
that's a fair point, i guess i just saw that and my mind jumped to other url related points
it would be nice to have them both solved together though
yeah they're not in the lemmy markdown cheat sheet, but they're supported by markdown-it, the library that lemmy uses^[there's actually two different formats available as well]
One other thing that just occurred to me, putting the title in the link might not work so well with lemmy, because post titles can be edited.
actually that is a good point, i didn't think of that
still though, there's no reason not to have the original title in the url. transparency, and all
Yeah, and I mean even it was abused that could be pretty funny. People posting things with weird titles then changing them immediately after, and seeing how long it takes people to notice the url.