> Please note that Mastodon can move your followers, but it can’t transfer your old posts or uploaded media to your new account. If you want to keep a copy, download an archive.
Sadly that's still an open issue that from time to time gets new input, but doesn't have a lot of traction. I feel like that's a big blind spot of Mastodon to this day and also basically forces people to stick to the largest instances that are less likely to go away, defeating the purpose of a distributed social network.
As someone whose first “social media” was USENET of the early 90s, and I suppose FidoNet before then, I don’t really consider the bulk of mainstream Internet users today to be in any way “my people”. The herd is endlessly mindless, shallow, bought with bread, and hungry for the circus.
>Please note that Mastodon can move your followers, but it can’t transfer your old posts or uploaded media to your new account. If you want to keep a copy, download an archive
I'm sure there is some technical excuse to why this is the case but just seems entirely broken that it can't just have the owner of the account provably broadcast they control both the original and the destinations and to redirect all posts.
I mean the actual thing that has value IS the posts and there would be less burden on people shutting down these servers if you were not destroying that work by doing so.
> I don’t enjoy how people interact on social media anymore
I can't figure out if this is me or if things really have changed. I was on early Reddit (before there were comments) and HN. There were always jerks and flamewars and pedants but it just feels like any thread I read on HN or Reddit is just full of the worst behavior. People think nothing of just being incredibly, incredibly rude to strangers and ther insights are often banal. I've watched long-time members of HN die and I can only think: do I really want to spend most of my life (or a good portion) doing this? It seems so empty.
What do people even get out of this? Is life this boring that people find it entertaining? I just don't get it anymore and I can't figure out if the novelty is gone (connecting people is overrated if it leads to...this), it's my age, or if the vibe really has shifted. I don't get any enjoyment out of it anymore and I feel like something is wrong with me because others do (only barely, this is insanity that we've adapted to).
2005 me thought things were going to be a lot more interesting, but things haven't really evolved towards anything positive in the forum/soc media space. (HN is social media - just trolling, the arguments of this are funny). There's gotta be something better. Do people even want better communities, would they recognize them, or is this the new normal? Is the optimism of 2005 dead, impossible to resurrect?
I agree. I think part of the problem is how recommendation algorithms have conditioned people to act online. Recommendation algorithms optimize for overall platform engagement to increase revenue, which tends to reward anti-social behavior like flamewars, conflict, ragebait, etc. It's rewarded simply because it creates more engagement than more positive content. Users in turn are conditioned to these algorithms because their anti-social behavior gets rewarded in the form of favorable algorithmic treatment. Now, I feel like the average social media user is just predisposed to act in those negative ways, which is why it's prevalent even on HN where the recommendation algorithms are not tuned in quite the same way.
Those forces weren't present on early social media, and have only gotten worse over time.
> There’s also the financial side. I’m very grateful to everyone who donated, but donations haven’t covered costs for a long time. I’ve had to shoulder most of the expenses, time, and responsibility myself.
One of the main issues of running a federated Mastodon instance with little to no money and donations will not cut it.
This is why I host a personal instance. The overheard for moderation and costs is much lower. It also means if I tire of this, migrating my content is easier.
The tech is nice but sadly there's still not that many interesting accounts or content there unless you really want to read about Nostr and zaps all day.
I've tried many times, there's decent apps too these days (Primal) but unless you are heavily into that topic or crypto it's not very interesting.
he's taking his ball and going home, the financial aspect isn't load bearing (god damn claude ruined this) in his decision, it's a rationalization. if it were significant, he wouldn't refuse to hand it over to someone who still wants to do it.
A social media site isn't like a free software project. People are trusting you in a way that you cannot just hand over to another entity. (It's more like a SaaS business, in that way.) Some instances have managed it, but only to trusted community members, and never (to my knowledge) without some degree of strife.
EDIT: Once the server disappears, users who did nothing will lose the ability to delete their accounts later.
Without self-destruct, remote servers may retain cached profiles and posts indefinitely, but the original users will no longer control those objects. Mastodon created the command specifically to broadcast account deletions before a permanent shutdown and leave little cached material behind.
Is this desirable? This wipes other people's copies of their boosts, favourites, and bookmarked posts. If users want this behaviour, they can delete their own accounts.
> Please note that Mastodon can move your followers, but it can’t transfer your old posts or uploaded media to your new account. If you want to keep a copy, download an archive.
Sadly that's still an open issue that from time to time gets new input, but doesn't have a lot of traction. I feel like that's a big blind spot of Mastodon to this day and also basically forces people to stick to the largest instances that are less likely to go away, defeating the purpose of a distributed social network.
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/12423
It's also a source of power for mods.
As someone whose first “social media” was USENET of the early 90s, and I suppose FidoNet before then, I don’t really consider the bulk of mainstream Internet users today to be in any way “my people”. The herd is endlessly mindless, shallow, bought with bread, and hungry for the circus.
Well, you certainly have the arrogance of a USENET poster I'll grant you that.
>Please note that Mastodon can move your followers, but it can’t transfer your old posts or uploaded media to your new account. If you want to keep a copy, download an archive
I'm sure there is some technical excuse to why this is the case but just seems entirely broken that it can't just have the owner of the account provably broadcast they control both the original and the destinations and to redirect all posts.
I mean the actual thing that has value IS the posts and there would be less burden on people shutting down these servers if you were not destroying that work by doing so.
> I don’t enjoy how people interact on social media anymore
I can't figure out if this is me or if things really have changed. I was on early Reddit (before there were comments) and HN. There were always jerks and flamewars and pedants but it just feels like any thread I read on HN or Reddit is just full of the worst behavior. People think nothing of just being incredibly, incredibly rude to strangers and ther insights are often banal. I've watched long-time members of HN die and I can only think: do I really want to spend most of my life (or a good portion) doing this? It seems so empty.
What do people even get out of this? Is life this boring that people find it entertaining? I just don't get it anymore and I can't figure out if the novelty is gone (connecting people is overrated if it leads to...this), it's my age, or if the vibe really has shifted. I don't get any enjoyment out of it anymore and I feel like something is wrong with me because others do (only barely, this is insanity that we've adapted to).
2005 me thought things were going to be a lot more interesting, but things haven't really evolved towards anything positive in the forum/soc media space. (HN is social media - just trolling, the arguments of this are funny). There's gotta be something better. Do people even want better communities, would they recognize them, or is this the new normal? Is the optimism of 2005 dead, impossible to resurrect?
I agree. I think part of the problem is how recommendation algorithms have conditioned people to act online. Recommendation algorithms optimize for overall platform engagement to increase revenue, which tends to reward anti-social behavior like flamewars, conflict, ragebait, etc. It's rewarded simply because it creates more engagement than more positive content. Users in turn are conditioned to these algorithms because their anti-social behavior gets rewarded in the form of favorable algorithmic treatment. Now, I feel like the average social media user is just predisposed to act in those negative ways, which is why it's prevalent even on HN where the recommendation algorithms are not tuned in quite the same way.
Those forces weren't present on early social media, and have only gotten worse over time.
People take example from their political and cultural (artists, sportspersons) leaders.
Question: Is there some kind of official protocol for Mastodon?
Reason I ask, is if whoever is in charge have considered to support moving posts and interactions from one server to another.
The protocol is ActivityPub and the feature you suggest is being considered as FEP 1580.
https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/1580/...
Yes, it's called ActivityPub. I'm surprised it doesn't support migrating posts.
> There’s also the financial side. I’m very grateful to everyone who donated, but donations haven’t covered costs for a long time. I’ve had to shoulder most of the expenses, time, and responsibility myself.
One of the main issues of running a federated Mastodon instance with little to no money and donations will not cut it.
This is why I host a personal instance. The overheard for moderation and costs is much lower. It also means if I tire of this, migrating my content is easier.
this is why nostr beats mastodon. when the operator pitches a fit and shuts down, your community survives.
The tech is nice but sadly there's still not that many interesting accounts or content there unless you really want to read about Nostr and zaps all day.
I've tried many times, there's decent apps too these days (Primal) but unless you are heavily into that topic or crypto it's not very interesting.
The author doesn't sound like they are pitching a fit to me.
he's taking his ball and going home, the financial aspect isn't load bearing (god damn claude ruined this) in his decision, it's a rationalization. if it were significant, he wouldn't refuse to hand it over to someone who still wants to do it.
A social media site isn't like a free software project. People are trusting you in a way that you cannot just hand over to another entity. (It's more like a SaaS business, in that way.) Some instances have managed it, but only to trusted community members, and never (to my knowledge) without some degree of strife.
I feel like if you can ignore the bitcoin-bros, Nostr is a better, more lightweight design that doesn't suffer from centralized (localized) shutdowns.
don't forget to `tootctl self-destruct`
https://docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/tootctl/#self-destruct
EDIT: Once the server disappears, users who did nothing will lose the ability to delete their accounts later.
Without self-destruct, remote servers may retain cached profiles and posts indefinitely, but the original users will no longer control those objects. Mastodon created the command specifically to broadcast account deletions before a permanent shutdown and leave little cached material behind.
Is this desirable? This wipes other people's copies of their boosts, favourites, and bookmarked posts. If users want this behaviour, they can delete their own accounts.