Reg Martin
Dave Troy 
Another design consideration re: Mastodon is that it works well for ephemeral asynchronous communications, but for many reasons should not be counted on as an archival resource. Media attachments are periodically purged and may not be available after a week, or a month, etc. While some servers may try to preserve content forever, this may be costly and unsustainable. Creators, researchers should treat this as an ephemeral resource and make provisions for self-archiving anything important.
I know Internet Archive just setup a Mastodon server and may have ambitions in this regard, and you can probably use it now to archive specific posts. Anyway I’m sure this will become of increasing importance as people start to post more original work here; that said, posting stuff to a separate resource you control is best practice.
Iria Puyosa@davetroy Please, could you share the Internet Archive's Mastodon URL? It didn't show up in my search.
Raymond Johnson
JProl 🌍🎶💾🆓🐦@davetroy I guess it is not possible https://mastodon.archive.org/@textfiles/109338890338075985
Jason Scott (@[email protected])
Hey there, Admin of the Internet Archive Mastodon here. I've seen some people speculate/rumor that the Archive's mastodon instance is set up to be an involuntary vacuum spot for all toots passing back into the Wayback, and it is NOT that. Any archiving of toots would be some other project (and outside my knowledge) but the Internet Archive Mastodon is just another instance, doing the mastodon thing. Communicate with us at will.
Mike | Raymond Tec@davetroy Just so you, and others who may read this are aware: A few hours after you posted this, Jason Scott of the Internet Archive (@textfiles) specifically stated that they would not be doing this.
Apologies if you have already seen and addressed that.
andregil@davetroy according to @textfiles this seem to not be the plan for now https://mastodon.archive.org/@textfiles/109338890338075985
Jason Scott (@[email protected])
Hey there, Admin of the Internet Archive Mastodon here. I've seen some people speculate/rumor that the Archive's mastodon instance is set up to be an involuntary vacuum spot for all toots passing back into the Wayback, and it is NOT that. Any archiving of toots would be some other project (and outside my knowledge) but the Internet Archive Mastodon is just another instance, doing the mastodon thing. Communicate with us at will.
Michael K Johnson@davetroy Their node is just to participate in the Fediverse normally, and not to use their instance to archive any content.
This said, it’s likely that individual ‘home’ servers will preserve its own users’ content longer than those it pulls from federated servers, but even that can’t be relied upon indefinitely. Point being, assume this is an ephemeral resource, even as it’s a pretty decent one that may appear persistent for most practical use cases. Obviously, any given server can also disappear overnight, for any reason, so behave accordingly.
Xabier Ostale@davetroy The important issue is that the conversation goes on. That's the priority, I guess.
ladyteruki@davetroy : thank you for talking about it because I did not, in fact, know that content was purged regularly. On Twitter I'm used to finding very old messages and attachments of mine easily.
Daniel Schwarz @davetroy I’d bet that most new Mastodon users are not aware of this important difference vs. Twitter.
Rolf van Root@davetroy thanks. Very good advice. Can you recommend tools for personal backups/export?
Marc-André Moreau@davetroy I'm looking into solutions that would make the fediverse suitable for long-term, searchable content, which is why I've experimented with running my own pleroma instance. However, that only makes my own content more permanent than the rest. Are there ways to cache timelines long term, just for myself? Would that be considered socially acceptable here, if it's basically nothing more than a local backup?
@awakecoding @davetroy I keep hoping that we'll get an ActivityPub plugin for Discourse. It would really square the circle here. Discourse has been well optimized for being searchable and discoverable. It supports rich long-form writing.
I could see being able to boost and comment in Mastodon etc. a long post authored and maintained in Discourse, giving you stable and discoverable content in Discourse and federated conversation about that content that is more ephemeral.
There was an attempt to get funding to write such a plugin that fell through. I'm wondering whether the current #twitterMigration will make it more interesting to create such a bridge.
I think this could be a holiday-sized project for a #RubyOnRails developer who wants to build bridges between communities.
@mcdanlj @davetroy I'm all for it, that's something I had suggested on Twitter that Discord should do! A lot of the people I know from Twitter also have Discord accounts, we're just using it for different types of conversations and uses cases: https://twitter.com/awakecoding/status/1588912433649061889?t=r0I6YergGHPff4rD8q60bw&s=19
Marc-André Moreau on Twitter
“Product idea 💡for @discord - why not build a #Mastodon compatible bridge? A lot of the people I follow on Twitter are already in corresponding Discord communities. It's great for chat rooms and direct messages, but it's not the same. Discord could become part of the #Fediverse!”
@awakecoding @davetroy Yeah, there's a thread on meta.discourse.org I contributed to. I'm not sure that my suggested plan exactly works, but here's what I was thinking at least a few months ago:
https://meta.discourse.org/t/federation-support-for-discourse/90921/59?u=mcdanlj
I think that the first phase is a bit harder than I initially considered; I think more work is necessary. But it would be wonderfully connecting!
Federation support for Discourse
This. Possibly also integrating remote “Like” actions. I have noticed that the Fediverse has become noticeably more active and more populous since Elon Musk started his Twitter takeover bid. On the Discourse instances I run (three of them at the moment) I’d love to be able to use Mastodon (in my case) to be able to follow and “boost” them to a wider audience, to make the information on my instances more accessible and visible to a crowd of others who might care. All of my instances are for ex...
Nafnlaus 🇮🇸 🇺🇦@davetroy Kinda makes me think I should run a home server...
What's the sort of traffic load that comes in from the fediverse?
Zero One
Zero One (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image WELCOME TO INFINITY: Infinity is the simultaneous expression of everything; every reality is superdeterministic - agency is an illusion. 🧵 (https://twitter.com/ZeroOne33408052/status/1588926310520606720?s=20&t=I7zIcFb8TmcF05vJyYyJVg)
Jeff Clough
If you wish to continue our dialogue, I've moved servers: @ZeroOne
Zero One (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image PHILOSOPHY vs SCIENCE/PHYSICS: Philosophy occupies the realms beyond the boundaries of our material observations. #physics #Philosophy #philosophie #Cosmos #CosmosEcosystem #Infinity #science #nature #life #nde #meaningoflife #existence #consciousness #alchemy 🧵
Julian Elve@davetroy can’t beat having your own website and posting links here
CubeThoughts@davetroy Hopefully archive.org can take this on for a large nummer of instances.
jhamby@CubeThoughts @davetroy Well, a lot of people don't want to have their instances archived forever. It would have to be 100% opt-in.
💉💉💉💉 Sean Houlihane 🕷️🔶@davetroy Birdland is looking like its likely to be ephemeral too, it certainly helps if that is clear from the start.
Ashton Pittman@davetroy If accurate, this may be the biggest reason why Mastodon won't be able to become a Twitter replacement. The way Twitter serves as a cultural archive is indispensable. Although Elon Musk is working hard to trash it.
@ashton imho anyone this expecting to be a “Twitter replacement” is kinda asking the wrong questions. Better to think of this as something different that has other properties, with pluses and minuses. Behaviors like archiving can potentially be filled by a third party provider, and profitably.
Graham Lester
Martin Vermeer FCD
Jeff Jachens
Renée
Thiago@reneestephen you are right. But the whole Twitter going down (with a lot of notice time before) is different than your media being deleted after a couple months
Ruby S.
ProgGrrl
Paul Coen
bitsavers.orgA single entity tasked with preservation is A MISTAKE
@ashton @davetroy @bitsavers Yup, but the number of places that can afford and manage that are limited. We need more than one organization - but preservation needs to be a prime organizational mission. I’ll note that there is at least one official mirror, and a lot of unofficial backups. Having not for profit cultural organizations, including libraries, collaborate is the way to address that.
J
gsapijaszko@ashton @davetroy But, honestly, for what you would like to keep the posts/photos forever? If we look back, 20 years ago the newsgroup system and email discussion groups were very popular. Some of them have been archived, however not all, existing archives have gaps, missing posts, etc. Anyone crying for this? Similarly with entries on G+, several diaspora servers.. That may happen to mastodon instances as well. Let's enjoy the moment, connect with others, exchange the ideas. Let's evolve.
Marcel Fröhlich@davetroy Is there any established tooling to archive my Mastodon messages?
@FrohlichMarcel I’m actually not sure. Probably. If not I think the API should make that possible.
teledyn 𓂀About those expiring toots...
I haven't found the courage yet to flip the switch, but liking toot-impermanence more and more the more I think of it.
I think it could be very healthy.
Having used the mainstream social sites since they launched, when I requested my archives, I was mostly slapped in the face with how useless these were. Sure there were choice bits I was happy to have, but few and far between — if I knew they were transient, I could have saved them myself.
@davetroy As always the only way to control your content is to own the place where it's published. Glad I still have my blog, although Twitter did kill my regular posting to it.
Mike Fraser@davetroy Conversely if you're a company looking for data sovereignty one of the best ways is to start your own instance and control what and what does not get archived. Also employees with an account on your instance will have implied verification as you own the domain.
@mike yep. All true. Though many people (and companies) may wish to separate their social and company presences, for many reasons. But for corporate comms, it’s probably a good idea as you can do self-verification via rel links.
Drew Mochak@davetroy Really important point that does not get emphasized enough! We're all used to limitless storage because the companies with lots of resources are happy to give it, but it isn't free.
Arindam BasuA great point. A few days ago I wrote if we can have something like #DOI for #toot posted on #fediverse. Assigning a DOI is fine but there needs to ways to make sure these are persistent. Then there are issues around evaporating instances, here today, gone tomorrow. So spreading status updates on more than one instance is in order.
avrota@davetroy ephemeral is good.
JKHow well does it scale if each person has their own instance server?
nscrut 
@enscroot @davetroy You'd buy a "wall wart" with an SSD drive ($100 for a Pi and 1TB?) and get some kind of backup plan ($10/month) -- the config part is where Moz would build a friendly GUI, no? With instructions for iPhone Android and desktop. The whole thing would be a companion for your phone or laptop...
@jamienk @enscroot it's an interesting idea. It probably could work with the software as-is. Might be worth giving it a try. Possibly someone already has. You'd need a domain name and a firewall rule on your home router too, to open a port to it, and you'd have to dedicate port 443 to it the way things are setup now, I think.
@davetroy @enscroot The email server might be an issue (I know it's hard to stay off spam lists etc), and the DNS, port-forwarding, etc. I also have learned that something like OnlyOffice (Free software) is hard to set up and seems to req heavy processing.
But it does seem like a do-able project for a non-profit: offer services (like backup, dynDNS, email send-through, etc.) to supplement custom hardware and tuned software
Leo ☕@davetroy Not limited to Masto, this is true for all platforms you don't own yourself. Content can disappear for a variety of reasons outside of your control.