When an instance like lemm.ee shuts down, what happens to the posts and comments?

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨artifex@lemmy.zip⁩ to ⁨fediverse@lemmy.world⁩

While I understand the concept of federation I’m unclear as to what it actually entails at a technical level. When lemm.ee eventually shuts down, will all of that user content (posts, comments, votes, etc) cease to exist? Is it mirrored on other instances?

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nokturne213@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
They will still be visible to federated instances as they have a local copy. But any new posts or comments will not federate.

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- can@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  And any new instance will not have a copy.
  
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- artifex@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Ah that makes sense. So federation implies copying essentially, and not merely linking. Thanks!
  
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- Nemo@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Well, there won’t be any new posts, so that’s not all that much of a problem in the end.
  
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  - nokturne213@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You can actually make a new post on an instance that has closed, you can also reply to posts on a closed instance
    
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insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
For a practical test, search for kbin.social (and then ctrl+f for it also to get the direct results). Or, just look at a community: !kbinMeta@kbin.social

The only thing that appears missing is the avatars. Though I assume this content is doomed in the long-run when it comes to new instances, as I doubt re-federation (3rd-party federation) is a thing. Unless of course, someone manually crossposts said content.

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dharmacurious@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I am in no way techy, but from what I gather because the posts are federated they are also stored on the other instances as well, so posts are still visible. In the post announcing the shuttering of .ee they specifically mentioned adding a note on your profile to link to your new profile, so people can find your new profile after that shut down. That implies to me that everything not intentionally scrubbed remains open/visible long after the shut down of the original source.

Again, though, not techy, so I may be vocalizing from my posterior

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Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Piefed has a community migration feature: piefed.social/post/667044

Basically, find the piefed.social copy of your community and then look for the ‘move to piefed.social’ link in the sidebar.

@rimu@piefed.social

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Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
When Yiffit shutdown, Wander archived everything. Though I am not sure how or where… But it kinda tells me that without manually doing something with it, it will probably be lost.

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- can@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  Can’t log in to the instance, or make new top level posts, but navigating directly to an old link still apparently works and you can reply and everything. 🤷🏻‍♂️
  
  Keep in mind these are only visible to users of your instance.
  
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  - artifex@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    oh good point (and not entirely obvious).
    
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irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
All the images disappear, since they are just links on remote instances.

A copy of all the accounts, comms, posts and comments stay on any instance around to recive them, but they are not fetchable.

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TinyLittlePuni@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
My guess is that the posts and comments will still be visible but if you click on a username or a post it’ll just redirect you to an error page

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JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
They probably get harvested and sold to some data broker for use in training another shitty ai model.

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- catloaf@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  They don’t need to shut down for that.
  
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- Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  This isn’t reddit. Thatxs not what we do here.
  
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  - artifex@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Not like we can stop it. If it’s online and not behind some kind of auth it’s getting slurped.
    
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  - Tanoh@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Pretty naive to think someone isn’t doing it already, but as someone else said you don’t need to shutdown for it. Infact it is worse if you shut down as you don’t get new data.
    
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