I saw some moderator actions that included purging something. How is this different from removing and banning things?
Removing means things are only flagged as deleted and can be restored. Purging means things are actually deleted.
Banning is denying someone access to a community or instance, temporarily or permanently.
According to the docs, purge is admin action that deletes everything associated not just the comment/post itself.
A quick look over some of the backend code tells me that “purge” means “remove a thing, and remove any linked images from the image store”. E.g. purging a user removes not only their account, posts, and comments, but also any images they’ve posted, plus their account banner and avatar.
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/tree/main/crates/api/src/site/purge
In contrast, banning a user doesn’t delete things they’ve posted.
