Comment on Lemmy.one will be shutting down
fireweed@lemmy.world 2 days ago
“Joining the fediverse isn’t hard bro, your instance doesn’t matter, just pick one.”
“Stop using Lemmy.world, we need to redistribute to smaller instances.”
The number of times I’ve heard these fucking lines when people discuss why Lemmy/the Fediverse isn’t growing like corp-owned alternatives…
“Joining the fediverse isn’t hard bro, your instance doesn’t matter, just pick one.”
It’s true, especially in cases like this when users have 3 months to pick another instance.
“Stop using Lemmy.world, we need to redistribute to smaller instances.”
Also true. Should LW go down in 90 days in a similar way, is it better if LW has 50% of the users, or a smaller number?
I don’t disagree with the sentiments behind these statements, but you’re basically asking a fish to leave their large school to join a smaller school because it will benefit the species as a whole if the species is divided into multiple schools rather than one giant school. While it might be true that the species is safer that way, it’s much more dangerous for the individual fish to be in a smaller school than to stay in the large school.
In other words, it’s safer for the fediverse for users to diversify, but is safer for the individual to join a “too large to fail” instance. If a user’s instance goes belly up and they lose their account and everything associated with it, it’s functionally similar to the entirety of Lemmy going down as far as that individual user is concerned, because unless you’re a serial lurker (in which case it doesn’t even matter what instance you’re on if you’re not contributing) who wants to invest years in a social media site just to lose your account? Most folks are going to leave rather than start all over. And most folks are going to make the decision that is in their best interests over those of some website. I know every time I see another instance get shut down or defederated, I’m relieved I decided to sign up via .world, even if it’s sluggish at times.
who wants to invest years in a social media site just to lose your account? Most folks are going to leave rather than start all over.
It wouldn’t feel like fully starting over to me. Sure migrating communities I created would suck but at least they would be archived accross many instances.
I’m not attached to my account itself. I just like my admin team.
it’s much more dangerous for the individual fish to be in a smaller school than to stay in the large school.
LW run was running 0.19.3 for more than a year after the 0.19.4 and later releases, preventing the LW users of using the new Lemmy features.
is safer for the individual to join a “too large to fail” instance.
Agree, but if you filter lemmy.fediverse.observer/list by Active Users, and take any instance in the top 20, you’re as safe as on LW.
Lemmy.zip for instance provides monthly transparency reports on !home@lemmy.zip , such as this one: lemmy.zip/post/35411310
who wants to invest years in a social media site just to lose your account?
I’ve switched instances several times since June 2023. I keep the same username and profile pic, so people still recognize me, and I still recognize other users who switched instances, or even platforms (e.g. switching from Lemmy to Piefed).
I know every time I see another instance get shut down or defederated, I’m relieved I decided to sign up via .world, even if it’s sluggish at times.
You’ll see similar reactions of people not on LW every time LW takes a controversial decision: lemmy.world/post/24135976
One can make it also easier when switching profiles: They can just add a link to their new account. The profile info will be cached on other servers, even when the origin server goes down, providing a proof of the accounts validity. Of course lemmy could simply add a validation url similar to mastodon does and that would make this moot.
to be fair, they’re both correct. Lemmy.world could go solo with no federation and still have a decent user base, maybe add sh.itjust.works and ani.social and it would cover nearly all of the bases.
You can just export your subscriptions and create an account on another instance in cases like these.
galaxynova@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
this wouldn’t be so bad if you could easily transfer your account from one instance to another
Saleh@feddit.org 2 days ago
You can transfer all your subscriptions and blocks. What you cannot transfer is your imaginary internet points that aren’t summed up by default in lemmy anyways.
EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 2 days ago
Would your post/comment history be lost as well? Will posts/comments show up as [by deleted user] or w/e?
Saleh@feddit.org 2 days ago
AFAIK they would remain tied to your old account. The instances copy everything off each other. So if reddthat.com would go down, your comment would still show as EndlessNightmare@reddthath.com If you were to make a new account on a different instance it would not have your posts and comments “attached” to it.
This could be an issue if you rely on reputation for something that is tied to your account. In that sense having some mechanism to proof the old account to be owned by you would be good.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 days ago
If instance A stops existing, instance B doesn’t have any specific knowledge of that versus it no longer federating. Existing posts and comments will stay. My instance is no longer federated with some, but I still see the communities from them.
utopiah@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Ironically enough, even though “imaginary” this aspect might be key to moderation. Assuming (and that’s a flawed assumption) that people would upvote/downvote based not on their opinion but rather on how healthy/unhealthy to the discussion a comment is, then those “points” would be useful to see above/below a threshold one would want to interact, e.g. show content or not (or even now show even as to unfold).
drmoose@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Nah the points are laughably easy to game even in centralized reddit since this moderation aspect never made any sense. As if bad actors can’t upvote themselves, buy upvotes or just repost any random garbage to /r/funny.
Its a terrible system that turned Reddit into a content desert. Once you decline some new person because “they dint have enough karma” they’re never trying to contribute again and you end up with power users who have a moat around content production.
fireweed@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Switching accounts over is a big issue for sure, but even bigger is when entire communities are lost. Those are much harder to switch over, both due to scale and moderation concerns.