@gwensnyder FWIW, I put together resources for the Google+ shutdown (April, 2019), a/k/a #plexodus

Wiki
https://social.antefriguserat.de/index.php/Main_Page

Subreddit:
https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/

There should be some useful information there in terms of what did / didn't work.

I'm more than happy to make those available to Twitter refugees.

Continued Community Migration tips:

• The #InternetArchive, and the independent though closely-working #ArchiveTeam are a blessing if you want your content permanently archived online. (And if you don't, they'll disable public access on request, easily, email info@archive.org) This can be self-service or through an Archive Team Project, see: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/

• To save any one page at the Wayback Machine, use a URL of the form https://web.archive.org/save/<ORIGINAL_URL>. This can be scripted or automated if you have a list of URLs, say, from a downloaded archive. I've saved many thousands of my own pages across multiple sites this way.

• There's also #ArchiveToday, which is not a charity, is pretty opaque about operations, operators, financing, and goals, but does do a good job of capturing today's Web as it exists (IA can have ... issues with this). There is also no automated bulk-save option. You can streamline the process by generating sets of URLs to save, and clicking through those one-by-one. Depending on what you're trying to save and how motivated you are, this is also an option (and yes, I've also saved a few thousand of my own pages this way).

Keep in mind that archive sites may not be as accessible or functional as the original. For example, Google+ URLs archived at the Internet Archive carry only a subset of comments, and profile pages don't allow the listed posts to be opened.

For example, this G+ post shows only 6 of 82 comments:

https://web.archive.org/web/20190319215226/https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/hEjRbVQmYSD

And my G+ profile page shows posts but those cannot be opened through the Wayback Machine. Heck, you can't even determine the URLs to request archived copies:

https://web.archive.org/web/20190331094038/https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/

What's most useful is if you can indicate on a profile / landing page where you've gone off to and people might be able to, with luck, track you down there. My G+ profile page above does so.

@jerry @evacide @micahflee

#TwitterExodus #Plexodus #CommunityMigration #CommunityContinuity #SwitchingPlatforms #WaybackMachine

@jerry I'd tried setting up a resource for Google+ refugees, which ... turned out to be hard.

Lessons learned, however, at https://social.antefriguserat.de/index.php/Main_Page.

Related subreddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/

I've been meaning to compile a set of lessons learned, of possible interest to you and perhaps @evacide (I'd initiated contacts w/ EFF a ways back but dropped that ball).

• Community is a lot harder to preserve than content. Existing social media platforms aren't just the publisher but the directory.

• Move to an established platform. Even if it's not ideal, something that's up right now beats the heck out of still-in-development (or not even that) options.

• Mailing lists are highly underappreciated. They offer an out-of-band universal contact mechanism: email addresses.

• Though managed migration of community is hard ... informal migration can still be surprisingly effective if people know where to find you. Post VERY PROMINENT NOTICES of where you'll be moving to.

• #SIGNALFLARE was a mechanism created and employed heavily at G+. The hashtag, plus a set of contacts and alternate platforms at which you could be found was encouraged. I'd compiled many of those in a Notable Names Database: https://social.antefriguserat.de/index.php/G%2B_Notable_Names_Database

• Once a platform has either announced it will be shutting down, or appears quite likely to do so for other reasons, the best thing to do is to establish alternative presences sooner rather than later.

• In fact, better than that is to have a multi-platform strategy from the start. Do NOT put all your eggs in one basket. (Jerry with mailing list, blog, podcast, Twitter, and Mastodon presences is an exemplar here.)

• There's a notion of three types of people in an emergency: 1) deer in the headlights, 2) show us what to do, and 3) this ship's unsinkable. Numbers 1 & 3 can't be helped, group 2 are your squad. (There are also a few other categories, including griefers and profiteers/opportunists.) For a platform migration, the good news is that few people are likely to die, so groups 1 & 3 will eventually rediscover the main body, but during the transition they're of less than no use.

• People do in fact die. The refugee Diaspora* instance for G+ refugees, Pluspora.com, failed after its admin died, without any continuity / transfer-of-leadership plan. Joindiaspora, the original Diaspora* instance, after both technical debt and an AWOL admin meant that it was no longer viable. #BusFactor is a real problem, continuity needs addressing.

There's more I could write, this is probably a good start.

#TwitterExodus #Plexodus #CommunityMigration #CommunityContinuity #SwitchingPlatforms