Erik J. Barzeski
MistyIt feels like the more Mastodon instance shutdowns we see, the more important it gets to think about how to enable migrating posts. Migrating a user's follows/followers is good, but for a user to lose their entire post history is pretty severe. And the longer you use a server, the more painful it gets to lose that history of everything you've ever written.
Dan@misty yes, this would certainly be a good feature. And surely not all that difficult to implement. (edit: this was my unqualified opinion, tooted casually and without a second thought; I have since been set straight on the matter by people more knowledgeable than myself on the topic. You would think I'd be old enough to know better! And I do. But there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path, so they say)
Karyl 
@dan @misty it’s one of those problems that *seems* simple but becomes ornery as you consider:
- DB arch: do we need to track “OP” date vs “added to DB” date separately? Or a “imported” flag?
- Probably need to allow API reqs to not trigger notifs, we don’t want thousands of those at once
- If an instance closes, you’ll have 1000s of users exporting 1000s of posts each, and importing elsewhere = huge server load, need a robust job queue to avoid killing servers.
@paintedsky @misty haha yes, that I'm sure. Nothing is ever really "simple" in this line of work ☺️
Graham Sutherland / Polynomial@dan @paintedsky @misty also, the abuse angle of creating a bunch of posts on one server and then migrating the account to another, where the posts are unwelcome or against the rules. the migration could include thousands of posts and make it very difficult for the moderators to keep up.
@gsuberland That’s one I hadn’t considered, but a very good point
Dec [{(
)}]@gsuberland @dan @paintedsky @misty
One solution to that is rate-limiting.
Nobody gets all their old posts (from their previous server) migrated and instantly given the same visibility.
One solution to that is rate-limiting.
Nobody gets all their old posts (from their previous server) migrated and instantly given the same visibility.
- How do you handle links to old handles in *other* people’s posts?
- How do you handle links to replies in threads from other people’s accounts?
You could create redirection tables server-side but I’d have to think that would get massive rather quickly
You could just ignore the problem and have broken links, but that creates bad UX and makes the whole idea of “preserving” stuff much less useful.
Nemo_bis 🌈
Roni Rolle Laukkarinen@paintedsky @dan @misty I started my own instance based on WordPress. It directly made alive about 2000 posts to Fediverse that have been posted over 15 years time span. There are no comments and replies on them but this is a proof that it's possible with rather straight forward effort. It feels sufficient to have the posts as-is without any complexity of stars, replies etc. loading them up without crippling performance is another story and needs some serious engineering but I don't see it any different than a job queue of thousands of followers.
emurphy42@paintedsky @dan @misty Until robust content addressing is built, how difficult is it to export a read-only backup as, say, static HTML? Something that's easier to work with than "spin up your own one-user Mastodon instance (and then need to worry about updating all the components of same)".
Cassandrich
Sebastian Krzyszkowiak
Jeremy Neander@misty It hurts immeasurably more to forever lose the words of people who are no longer around.
LisPi@jeremyneander @misty This is one part where the data export features currently available don't help at all and it's a completely unaddressed problem.
From Okesska With Love@misty i migrated a week or so ago. ive had to repost my art but i lost so much
@Okesska I'm sorry. I understand how frustrating that must be!
sxpert@misty the only sensible way of doing so would be to have a way to transfer the user’s entire account info as some data structure to be handled by the target instance in a batch process.
kawazoe@misty As devs, we are acutely aware of the impacts of storing knowledge in inappropriate places. Treating Discord as a wiki is a popular one that comes to mind, making it hard for people to get into game modding. I wonder if people who feels for their Mastodon history aren't trapped in that same mindset. If you're looking for permanence, maybe a blog is the place to be. After all, real life shared spaces aren't permanent either; they are in the moment, like most use Mastodon also.
Governor S@misty Truth.
Jake Rodkin@misty would love this plus a(n ideally rolling) backup feature, with the power to upload a blob of your post history to another server if your old one disappears suddenly. I mean, I would prefer a world where servers didn’t disappear, but if that’s going to happen, moving and backup/restore would both be great.
JP@misty totally agree and at this point i am kinda actively pissed at the project leadership for not at least communicating about this widely voiced need.
@jplebreton @misty To me, Mastodon/ActivityPub isn't good. It's a very fortunate out we had when the birdsite went to hell, and is helping people reimagine how things could be, and its open nature will let it be a mostly seamless bridge to what comes next. But what comes next should be truely decentralized, content addressed, and giving participants real ownership of their identities and posts independent of the infrastructure they run on.
jonny (nonvenomous)@dalias
@jplebreton @misty
ya ya hell ya this is what I'm talking about. AP as a transitional medium is the way to think about it
@jplebreton @misty
ya ya hell ya this is what I'm talking about. AP as a transitional medium is the way to think about it
Sam Seltzer-Johnston@misty yeah, I'm trying to devise a protocol for migrating with proper redirection as long as you have a valid archive and some way of verifying you are the real owner of those posts. I have some ideas. There are also some half-written specs for a distributed data integrity layer but I don't think it covers the problem space a layuser will most likely face. I'd love to workshop this with folks who are interested.
@misty tbh this has been on my mind since late November.
@misty In terms of having a private copy, the data export features for #Mastodon do include all of one's posts & even media.
I recommend using them as frequently as your instance allows.
The ability to import that into another instance though is limited, but it feels like it shouldn't be hard to implement.
Simon Willison@misty couldn't agree more
This is definitely something that could be built. If you run your own Mastodon server and are deeply technically literate it's possible to solve this yourself by writing rows into the underlying PostgreSQL database, but it absolutely should be a feature that everyone can use
Andres Jalinton@simon @misty
Many admins had told me that toots are not thought to have a long life.
I have some conflictive thoughts about that, I see people wanting their toots to last only a short time.
I personally think and care about my responses and toots and I would like those to last, that's why I run my own instance.
Many admins had told me that toots are not thought to have a long life.
I have some conflictive thoughts about that, I see people wanting their toots to last only a short time.
I personally think and care about my responses and toots and I would like those to last, that's why I run my own instance.
Jons Mostovojs@Andres @simon @misty they can at least back up the texts! Texts aren't even tens of gigabytes with a reasonable use. Besides, if they want to save space, they could vacuum stale federated content and preserve the original content. It's sad to think that my server may have toots that are lost on their home server 😭
@jonn @simon @misty
I had think about it, individual instances saves toots that are not longer available in the original server (even the original server could be down) what happens then for the people that wants their toots to be deleted after some time?
It's really "never forget" on the internet if you post publicly.
I had think about it, individual instances saves toots that are not longer available in the original server (even the original server could be down) what happens then for the people that wants their toots to be deleted after some time?
It's really "never forget" on the internet if you post publicly.
Xan ☀️ 🌈 🌊 ⚓️@Andres Very much agreed. If you want disappearing posts, maybe use Snapchat? 😅
benxin some good news, I know that Diaspora has made a fair amount of progress on this.
https://blog.diasporafoundation.org/70-a-big-hey-from-diaspora
katherine montalto@misty this is one of the reasons I haven't moved.
Peter Butler@misty Eh. Are old posts really that valuable? I’m gonna say no.
If you’re talking about recreating a post timeline going back years … I don’t think it’s worth it. Just my $0.02.
SleepyCatten (Joint Pain Arc)@peterbutler @misty Dear Peter
Other people exist. The fact that they do not matter to you does not mean that they're invaluable.
You also wouldn't be negatively impacted by others having the ability to migrate their older posts.
Kind regards
@SleepyCatten @misty Absolutely. I was just offering my own personal opinion.
The only negative impact of migrating toots would be the development time spend enabling it, which is not inconsiderable, but I understand it’s an important feature for some users (much like “quote boosting” is for others.)
Governance is going to be very interesting in the Fediverse.
Josh Ferrara@misty completely agree! I understand it’s a complex task, but it would be worth the effort in my view.
StephenC@misty Phenomena are impermanent. This includes Mastadon instances and Twitter.
Olav@misty my understanding is that user profiles/data are domain-based, rather than identity-based. So a full migration isn't just moving data, it's whole-sale rewriting of database fields. Vs a global UID and the nodes only need to know where your identity is
Hubzilla (Zot) does the latter but it's a smaller protocol and perhaps a few too many features.
Hubzilla (Zot) does the latter but it's a smaller protocol and perhaps a few too many features.
escapadesrpg
Scot Hacker@escapadesrpg @misty If interested, you can go into settings right now and set your content to auto-delete itself after n days/weeks/months! It's actually considered by some to be a courtesy to your host.
MyMiloCat+MydogNoodles@shacker Since I saved not one iota of my posts on the bird site when I banged out days after Elon got it, might as well set my stuff to expire...
Mike 🍁✔@misty But your posts on your old instance were affected by the rules there as well as the interconnections you had and what they posted. On your new instance , it's different rules and different interconnections, would it be right to drop all your old posts in the laps of your new neighbours?
Patrick Hills@misty Exactly! 100% agree. The ability to move is meaningless if you can’t take your identity (including posts) with you. I just moved from Hachyderm to Mastodon.social simply as a longterm play because I didn’t want to lose post history (it was painful to lose what I had at my last instance, even). FWIW, they are aware and are working on solutions– https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/12423
BogDrakonov@misty I’m seriously considering my own server (possibly shared with close friends) for this very reason. Annoyingly complex solution to the problem and not for everyone but also the only current option until migrations can happen.
maegul@misty So my current somewhat inflammatory take on this is that the #Fediverse is more of a Feudalism than a Federation.
Until user-account-mobility across instances, and even #Fediverse platforms I’d say, becomes better, we haven’t got a real/meaningful Federation, at least for the purposes of social media.
In real world federations, ease of individuals’ movement is fundamental. With our instance bound and especially platform bound accounts, “Feudalism” becomes more accurate.
volkrisSo here’s a technical point that I’m not at all sure about, but I believe the underlying protocols have features that would allow people to maintain identities separately from their instances.
At this point the applications like Mastodon and whatever else aren’t really taking advantage of that separation, but I think it’s actually in there.
The ActivityPub protocol stuff is pretty big and complicated so I can never remember every nook of it, but, I think I remember that separation being part of it.
I’m naive to the details of ActivityPub, and so my opinions are potentially obnoxious and entitled!
But, even if it’s in the protocol, that all the platforms have engineered their backends with embedded accounts baked in, then there’d still need to be a major overhaul, I’d guess?
It’d be interesting to think about how one platform might set a trend by implementing what you’re alluding to.
Zac@misty If you export your archive, and you have a website, you could publish it as HTML (probably need a tool for this), and then put a link in your new Mastodon profile. That way the content lives on in a publicly-accessible archive. No need to involve your new instance.
A. I. Porpoises@misty I was really surprised when I learned you lose your entire post history when you change instances. During the early days of the Big Migration, the common refrain was “just pick any instance—you can always change it later.”
Wolfie Rankin@misty I thought admins cleared it regularly?