Trevor GunterApr 21, 2023
mcc

The biggest thing missing from Mastodon remains the ability to *actually* migrate an account between servers.

The follower-migrate feature is not enough. I need to be able to migrate an entire account, including posts. And I should be able to do it without the former server cooperating (because of course servers can go down). I should be able to get some sort of cryptographic cert I can send to a new server with my posts and they'll be like "oh yeah, this is real, migrating u now".

Apr 21, 2023 at 10:43pmWeb
Show threadmccApr 21, 2023

If this feature existed, I'm not sure I'd make use of it! Maybe I'd decide m.s deserves on its own merits to be my server.

But if we had this feature, actually had it, quite a lot of other potentially problematic elements of the fediverse— especially the ones related to a network overemphasis on mastodon.social— would no longer be a problem.

I don't know *when* I expect this featureset to exist by. It sounds kinda hard. But it *needs* to exist eventually.

Show threadErinApr 21, 2023

@mcc I think I'd almost certainly move off of mastodon.social, though I don't know to where.

Probably the "right way" to choose (for me anyway) would be checking my own outgoings against "did this message get invisibly discarded because mastodon.social was blocked" and then finding a server what ain't blocked.

Show threadit's B! Cavello 🐝Apr 21, 2023

@mcc yeah, I haven’t formally migrated because I’m not prepared to lose access to all my old posts, but being on a new server has also made me feel the gaps in the mastodon model in another way.

I used to ignorantly from my mastodon.social account encourage new fedi users check out unusual hashtags to find friends, but now that I’m on a smaller server, I’ve found that there are barely any posts that show up in searches, even for common stuff like #FashionHistory!

Show threadbobApr 21, 2023
@mcc it's not hard on a technical level, tls has everything you need to do this, but there's an incentive problem
Show threadbobApr 21, 2023
@mcc if you wanted something that didn't require support from the server you could do it for peers that were following you already, and I think that's actually sufficient. do a special post with your public key and when you migrate send a special signed DM to everyone who followed you
Show threadRidley @ WATCH LYCORECOApr 21, 2023
@mcc this is one of 3 core problems mastodon has IMO; the other 2 are:
- no universal way to link to a post in a way that lets you actually interact with it (could be solved either with a centralized "this is my instance" service, which in theory wouldn't even need to store anything server-side, or a web browser API addition)
- no large-scale cross-instance search (maybe eventually third-party crawlers like google will fill this void, but nothing other than twitter was ever much good for searching tweets…)
Show threadvalApr 22, 2023
@mcc Yeah it would probably be pretty hard. It may even need changes to AP for other instances to see the moved posts (because their URI has to change), but even if they don't all support it, it's still better than nothing
Show threadOnikazeApr 21, 2023
@mcc does anything support post migration? Even if it did I would imagine the flood of posts would cause a problem cramming years of dialogue into the day that they got moved.
Show threadProbably Paul 🌍Apr 21, 2023
@onikaze @mcc Hubzilla with ActivityPub installed has full nomadic identity.
Show threadmccApr 21, 2023
@onikaze I don't think there's anything even now requiring the datestamps on posts to be *accurate*, is there?
Show threadOnikazeApr 21, 2023
@mcc don’t know. Occurred to me when I read the post and thought how I would go about it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Show thread+>eApr 21, 2023

@mcc or just the ability to import the archive

Or at least some sort of vault to keep your archive from another account

Show threadJPApr 21, 2023
@mcc my understanding is that mastodon is incapable of this on an architectural level and that the project's leadership doesn't give even a single shit about it.
hope you don't get too many "ah but post history doesn't matter, why do you care anyway, it was never intended to be permanent, you should just embrace the impermanence" etc etc replies to this.
Show threadmccApr 21, 2023
@jplebreton I would simply change the architecture
Show threadJPApr 22, 2023
@mcc totally a thing that projects can decide to do, communicate about, and gradually implement, if they know what they're doing!
Show threadErinApr 21, 2023
@jplebreton @mcc I have a proposal
Show threadRobert ThauApr 21, 2023
@mcc Migrating posts without cooperation of the orginal instance would require an archive of whatever you want to keep somewhere else - including whatever non-public stuff you want to keep. Not impossible, but tricky for people with sensitive stuff in their archive.
Show threadmccApr 21, 2023
@rst There's already a feature for people to download their own post history isn't there
Show threadRobert ThauApr 22, 2023
@mcc There is - and it'll do the job if the user still has access to the former server. But "without cooperation of the former server" seemed meant to cover cases where they don't (perhaps because it just blew up). That could be mostly handled by the user regularly saving archival copies, but that requires planning ahead, and having a secure place to store the archive. Some people won't.
Show threadmccApr 22, 2023
@rst at least give us the option to plan ahead
Show threadGraham Sutherland / PolynomialApr 21, 2023
@mcc the main problem with this is that I could post lots of unwanted content on a server of my choice - perhaps even self hosted - then migrate it to a different server all in one go. repeat this with a bunch of accounts and you end up with a serious moderation headache due to the volume of content appearing in one go inherently bypassing rate limits. there are also DoS considerations, and complexities with handling threads and name collisions post-migration.
Show threadGraham Sutherland / PolynomialApr 21, 2023
@mcc these aren't necessarily hard blockers, but it's definitely a nontrivial system to build so I can fully understand why it doesn't exist yet.
Show threadAmos DefamosApr 21, 2023
@mcc I believe this is something the AT protocol that Bluesky uses specifically supports. Hopefully having an example of a decentralized platform that does this will get devs of ActivityPub services to support something similar.
Show threadBrian SwetlandApr 21, 2023
@mcc Strong agreement. Personally I think beyond that there needs to be some kind of ID delegation (for folks who want it). I have a domain name which I've used since 1995... I'd like to be able to easily setup some kind of proof that maps my identity tied to the domain I control to some server hosting my account. That combined with actual working migration would let me hop servers if I want or need to *and* have a persistent identity that's human-comprehensible.
Show thread∴ esoterik ∴Apr 22, 2023

@mcc yeah i've thought about this too. realistically i don't have the energy to take it on but it's interesting to imagine how you could graft this onto the existing implementation.

one big thing i'd probably want would be a way for people to be able to sync their account locally (and keep it synced) _before_ their server dies or goes away.

Show threadAlex0007Apr 22, 2023
@mcc how to resolve situations where target server has lesser character limit? What to do with media files?
Show threadGen X-WingApr 22, 2023

@mcc I think disconnecting identity, data, and apps, we could also make a giant leap forward. Because you can migrate from one mastodon instance today, even if imperfect, but you can’t use let’s say mastodon, pixelfed, and calckey with the same identity.

But I do agree that complete identity and data migrations makes sense.

Show threadJake RodkinApr 22, 2023
@mcc 10000%
Show threadShadSterlingApr 22, 2023
@mcc ultimately I think we need to have both identities and posts to be decoupled from hosts entirely. And I think the methods needed to support that already exist, but haven’t been combined in that way
Show threadkatzenbergerApr 22, 2023

@mcc I understand why you want this. And at the same time, instances have policies that differ wildly.

Such a migration would be kind of a "retrofit posting" of content in bulk. How would you prevent me from first posting tons of hateful shit on a right-wing cesspit instance, followed by migration with a mass-import of that shit on an instance that has been well-moderated and ok, content-wise, so far?

Show threadmccApr 22, 2023
@katzenberger Well, if you want a serious answer, the proposal for doing this I've already published involves sites running a distributed ledger of changes to user keys. In my original plan this was for key rotation and a kind of "forgot my password" feature, but it could also be used to track continuity of a single account across multiple servers.
Show threadBob JonkmanApr 22, 2023

Doesn't #Hubzilla already have roaming and/or portable profiles? "Nomadic Identity"

Where's Mike MacGirvin, author of Hubzilla? @mike

https://zotlabs.org/page/hubzilla/hubzilla-project

@mcc

Hubzilla | Hubzilla - [email protected]

Hubzilla is a powerful platform for creating interconnected websites featuring a decentralized identity, communications, and permissions framework built using common webserver technology.

Show threadOla "Mullvaden" E.Apr 22, 2023
@mcc This would require centralization though. You know, the thing we try to avoid 😉
Show threadmccApr 22, 2023
@mullvaden I do not agree
Show threadAllen BrunsonApr 23, 2023
@mcc as long as we are all wishing, does anybody know of a mastodon client that will let me read all posts exactly once? i would like every post that shows up on my timeline to go into a big pool, and then get marked as read after i've seen it. that would make it easier for me to dip in and out while reading, de-dupe for me so i don't have to read boosted posts twice, not miss some posts because they scrolled off, etc
Show threadmccApr 23, 2023

@allenbrunson that's an interesting concept.

Sometimes I want to just jam and do like five "weird" hacks on Tusky

Show threadAllen BrunsonApr 23, 2023
@mcc i am perplexed that mastodon doesn't already work that way. that's what my rss reader does! it is perfect!
Show threadXdejApr 23, 2023
@allenbrunson
try @fedilab
@mcc