EDIT: Just crossed 26000!
Almost! At the time of this post, lemmy.world has a whopping 25733 users and is growing fast.
Since my last post yesterday, it has added 4000 new users, making it the clear second-largest lemmy instance out there. Also quickly catching up to lemmy.ml's 36000 (not taking new signups).
beehaw.org (3rd largest) sits at 12500 users, partly because of more restrictive registration requirements.
Source: https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/list
Exciting to see all this growth!
It works like this:
Essentially when you view his post on lemmy.one while logged into lemmy.world, you are not actually viewing the post on lemmy.one but a cached copy of the post on lemmy.world.
Lemmy.world allows downvotes so you click the button. It updates the cached copy on lemmy.world with your downvote and then send an update over to lemmy.one telling it about the downvote and to please do the same to keep the original post in sync with the copy. Lemmy.one ignores this update and chooses to retain the original based on its rules.
Thanks for the explanation. So different instances could be displaying wildly different points for the "same" post?
This post and comment are about defederation, but the result is the same. It should answer all your questions.
https://lemmy.world/comment/205763