Farcaster

am i understanding farcaster’s design properly that it focuses on consistency (or consensus) across all hubs?

versus activitypub’s every-server-for-itself approach (and nostr to some extent)

Yes, that’s right. All hubs converge on the same state as long as they get all messages. Hubs will sync with each other to catch missed messages. But there is no explicit consensus mechanism or penalties right now (other than a poor peer score).

didn't realize that. pretty interesting

how is timestamping handled?

Timestamps are not trustworthy, just like a personal blog

Technowatermelon. Elder Millenial. Building Farcaster. 

nf.td/varun

Why aren’t timestamps trustworthy / how else do you order the right sequence of events?

Arsenal | Working on algorithmic public goods funding at tea

We rely on client reported timestamp. The order is not immutable, it can change. Hubs will just treat the reported timestamp as true and change their state to reflect it (it's treated as if the message was missed). But note, you can only lie about your own timestamps, you cannot affect the timestamps of other messages.