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Toot.community is shutting down

social.jorijn.com

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Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#71

Post by abdullahkhalids »

ColinWright wrote: post #26
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #18

>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…

The posts, when posted live on the host. The user can download their posts. When a host goes away, where do you propose the posts previously hosted there now get hosted? One option is for the poster's new host to have all the old posts uploaded ... how then to previous other posts that point at them, or reply to them, get updated? I'd genuinely be interested to hear your suggestions for how these technical issues cou…

> how then to previous other posts that point at them, or reply to them, get updated?

You have outlined two scenarios. One where the old posts are deleted, and in the old posts are moved to the new host.

In the former case, the "referencing posts" start pointing to 404. Maybe in the latter case, we can also just have the referencing posts also point to 404.

A partial solution is better than a full solution.

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#72

Post by LocalH »

apitman wrote: post #37

> More importantly, I don’t enjoy how people interact on social media anymore I'm really just not convinced social media is very useful. The main use I can see is very fast dispersal of information, but anything truly important will be distributed by mainstream media, and less important things will travel between small communities at a slower rate. So what are we left with exactly? I think small communities where peo…

The problem isn't social media, it's mass social media.

Oldschool forums are "social media". But they were usually much smaller than the current mass social media where an ad buy can get you in front of millions and millions of eyeballs in a hyper-targeted fashion.

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#73

Post by fwn »

UtopiaPunk wrote: post #60
sph wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, the people I see during my walk out are more my people than those I meet on the Internet. They speak my language, are immersed in my culture, and find local neighbourhood problems very relevant. Then I go online, and there's a high likelihood I encounter people from other countries; worse is when you don't even enjoy a little bit of multiculturalism, but all you experience is a majority of people from one co…

I don't see this happening, but I really wish that the Mastodon model centered on joining your city's local Mastodon server. Your server is centered on local people and local conversations. Maybe one would find this local community sort of annoying, but it would be at relevant, at least some of the time. From there, you can connect with other individuals on other servers with similar interests or whatever. But your o…

What makes sense about selecting instances based on one's own location?

Using local infrastructure leaks your location and simplifies law enforcement against the user. For example: Living in Saudi Arabia for work would absolutely not inspire me to seek out a hypothetical Saudi Social.

If local reddit communities are any tell, you would see competition real fast, e.g. Littletown Social, realLittleTown, LittleTown Online ...

Instead, one should probably use the server that aligns best with ones idea of moderation and appears somewhat trustworthy not to go down tomorrow.

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#74

Post by account42 »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #49

>the server won’t be handed over to anyone else. That's a shame. It seems to me that we are in a frustrating situation where there are probably clever ways to solve the problems created by social media. But because launching new social platforms requires solving a difficult chicken-and-egg problem, we don't get very many chances to try anything new or innovative. Another way of putting it is: Occasionally people will…

No, not handing over the server to anyone is the only responsible thing to do when you don't have a successor that you can trust 100%.

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#75

Post by account42 »

tekne wrote: post #63
Drakim wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about this: Duplicates of the old posts are created on a new host using some import/export mechanic, but they also contain a cryptographic signature proving ownership of the old posts (utilizing some secret only the original poster would have access to). When a reference to a post becomes invalid because it's underlying host is gone, the other host holding those references tries to find new duplicate posts with t…

Can we please do content addressing one day?

No because people like to change the content of what they consider the same post.

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#76

Post by account42 »

input_sh wrote: post #28
rvz wrote: post #2

> 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.

I picked the only instance I know that actually charges its users an insignificant amount ($20/year), thinking it'd give me some sense of security that it won't just go away one day. I've been paying for it for 3 years in a row without a second thought about it. Anyways, on Aug 1st their pricing is increasing to $50/year (150% increase!) and now I'm far less convinced that the value it offers is worth the money.

$20/year being considered an insignificant cost for a social media account just shows how inefficient Mastodon is. That's already mode than half the cost of a cheap VPS that should be enough to host a couple of users.

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#77

Post by account42 »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #9
baron3dl wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> People are trusting you in a way that you cannot just hand over to another entity.

Same goes for a free software project actually.

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#78

Post by nagaiaida »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #40
stvltvs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't delete their accounts after the server hosting the account shuts down.

It's possible to contact the instances who retain the copies of the data, and have them delete it. It's not like the Fediverse is some kind of blockchain, where data is replicated forever unless authorised parties delete it. (And deletion requests can still be sent out by whoever controls the domain, after the instance is gone.)

(to be clear, i have been on mastodon/fedi for coming up on a decade now and have no qualms about the way leaving or sunsetting an instance works. part of the magic imo is that old posts from long-dead instances regularly go around again)

how exactly do you propose someone looking to delete all of their old posts from a dead instance might obtain the exhaustive list of instances that have historically received their posts via a long indirect cascade of boosts to send these formal or informal deletion requests? an allowlist-federated instance obviously makes that far more tractable, and otherwise I could potentially see annoying paths to doing it anyway if i had been the admin and had every log ever sitting somewhere to trawl through, but in the case of a normal user whose instance is already gone and who doesn't have an ongoing relationship with the prior admin, this is hardly a realistic way to address that concern.

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#79

Post by bellowsgulch »

dewey wrote: post #15

> 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 ar…

I always feel like stuff like this is more or less intentional. Projects make their priorities known based on the priorities of their work.

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#80

Post by bellowsgulch »

apitman wrote: post #37

> More importantly, I don’t enjoy how people interact on social media anymore I'm really just not convinced social media is very useful. The main use I can see is very fast dispersal of information, but anything truly important will be distributed by mainstream media, and less important things will travel between small communities at a slower rate. So what are we left with exactly? I think small communities where peo…

I think the small community stuff is useful, even on the scale of HN, which is only small when you think about the regulars posting, which people recognize.

Now that we have functional distributed social networks, I want a system that abolishes power mods. Whatever technical solution gets us there. Give us spam filters, but let people self-organize. I don't give two fucking shits that some Tom, Dick, or Harry doesn't like a Bob if I want to hear what Bob has to say.

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