this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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The problem is the paradox of "it doesn't matter what server you pick" while also giving them a choice.
If choices don't matter, why have a choice?
Although I disagree that it doesn't matter
No choice doesn't matterat all. However, the decision on which mastodon server to use for your social media is about as important as what you'll choose to eat today for dinner. Yeah, kinda important for the dinner itself and you don't want some crap, but if you do, you could just eat it anyway for now and try something else tomorrow.
It does affect your experience.
Joining a server with a small number of people vs a bunch will impact your initial experience and how fast you branch out
It's not anything that can't be overcome but let's not pretend every user understands how to expand their network
When you pick "federated" you'll see all posts, independent from your instance. But that's pretty much impossible because unless you have Tusky the posts will be too fast.
So yeah, to be able to read anything you have to just read the posts on your instance, meaning it does matter which one you pick.
or we make a few accounts on a few different servers.
we don't need to identify with our fediverse accounts.
There is no functional account migration, therefore your choice matter unless you think what you write doesn't matter, in which case, why write at all ?
It's very long standing issue, first issue was closed as completed but not complete
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/12423
Exactly. It just saves you the step of refollowing. Not a value-less feature, but my own posts matter to me too.
If an instance is shutting down I can migrate and keep ally followers but I'll just be at zero again for content. Not a good situation
Your follows maybe, but not who is following you. You become nobody again.
Account moves are supposed to trigger an unfollow of your old account and following of your new account so long as whichever software your followers are using supports it (I'm assuming Mastodon does since it's in their docs, not sure about Misskey, Calckey, etc).
Account redirection which is a like an HTTP 302 redirect (as opposed to 301) however, does not do this, or copy who you're following AFAIK.
Are relationships transparently preserved ?
Apologies, my familiarity with some of the terms of Mastodon are still a bit rough around the edges. By relationships, do you mean your followers and who you follow?
If so, it does seem like your followers is preserved (so long as nothing inhibits the move signal), as for who you follow its not clear on the docs whether that is preserved or not (and I've not done an account move of my own) - but you can export a list of who you're following from your account preferences, and then reimport it on your new account for sure.
I don't know exactly the mechanic of current migration, I just know it's not good enough.