this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
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If a server admin turns out to be a giant asshole (present company excepted, of course), is there a way to migrate your identity to another instance?
If a server admin gets hit by a bus and their instance goes away, do all the users just cease to exist?
Mastodon has that feature, but Lemmy has not added that feature yet. From a technical perspective, I don't think there's anything preventing it, the developers just need to code it. I'm sure they have their hands full dealing with the reddit explosion right now though.
My understanding, based on what I've seen with Mastodon, is that, yes, all users will just cease to exist if an instance admin decides to pull the plug. There was some stupid drama with a particular Mastodon admin for a really popular instance a while ago (I forget which server exactly), and they decided to just kill the server. Poof, 100k+ users gone
The potential for accounts to vanish if the instance they started on is, to me, the single biggest hurdle that Lemmy will face with casual users. I think that the devs need to really consider figuring out a way to make user logins global.
I said this the other day, but I think it may, unironically, be one of the first times I've ever seen a genuine use for a blockchain, but I have no idea how to implement it.
The reason that the big social media companies came to exist is precisely because people didn't like having to have a dozen accounts for all their different communities. Lemmy fixes that problem through federation, which is great, but introduces a new problem of "your account could just disappear, making all your contributions vanish." I know that was technically a problem before big social media companies appeared and everyone was using forums, but it's a big plus of the current social media giants- you don't have to worry too much about the company failing so completely that the website gets shut down, which is the only way you'd lose your account, any time soon. People are used to that stability, and will not be happy if they join an instance in the fediverse only to have the rug yanked out from under them.
If we want this to be a true alternative to big social media, it needs that stability.
Your contributions won't vanish, I can still see comments from people from dead servers on Mastodon because it's cached on my server. The bigger issue is when you set up a new username on a new server, how can you show that you're the old person. So ideally pick a server that has policies in place about offline notices, multiple admins, a funding plan, backups, policies about Nazis, etc.
Not fully on Lemmy. While text posts are cached across all federated instances, medias such as images and videos aren't...
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but media uploaded to a community from another instance is uploaded to the users' instance, not the instance of the community.
This may change in the future, and I hope so.
The other consideration is that impersonation might be pretty possible by making your own server called lemmy.mi or something and then stealing peoples username's verbatim. IDK if that'll ever become an issue but I do think its an avenue of attack for bad actors.
Oh it'll definitely become an issue - Help help my local community! A calamity has befallen me and I need cash now! - Posted by @[email protected]
Yeah, it's basically like email. Though I imagine an instance like that would get defedded pretty quick
It was mastodon.lol. Great server early on but the admin Nathan went off the rails in a big way.
that's...really unfortunate
Why do people care about preserving their "identity" and posts so much? This was never a thing in the old internet.
The old internet didn't have an all encompassing issue with bots and bad actors trying to gain your trust, a public post history is basically the closest thing a person can have to a trustable identity online, it's not a perfect solution but it helps
I am not sure I follow. I don't see where trust comes in when you're just reading random people's posts. I guess if you wanted to do moderation or something. But I know a lot of people including myself purposely delete their reddit account and start over.
Hey this person is talking about this subject I have just heard of. I will at some point need to go validate their information but as a shortcut I can go look at their profile and see that they are well respected in communities dedicated to that subject. Therefore I can trust their information.
Alt
This person is asking questions that sound reasonable on the surface - but when I look at their post history I see they are active in some much more extreme communities and I'm able to form the conclusion that their apparently reasonable post may not be in good faith.
if I'm unable to detect the tone or intentions of a comment I'll check that user's posts to get an idea, if someone has a history of not being an asshole I'm much more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt or want to engage with them. it also helps ID spam accounts
There are accounts which farm karma artificially in order to raise the price of the account and sell it to another user. Accounts with a lot can be used for branding/free marketing, as they have legitimatcy and can gain followers through having a backlog of activity. I've also heard that people can use this legitimacy for propagandistic and misinformation reasons, although I don't think that can be confirmed.
As for the moderation comment, I'm trying to mitigate this slightly by having an account with the same nick on 2-3 instances and modding myself on my communities on all of them. My hope is then if one of the identities goes away, I still have access from another one.
Some of us have friends online and we'd like to be able to do things like continue conversations while still being identifiably the same individual.
Also there's consideration of privilege schemes where the access is based on karma, activity, or account age. That's aside from the potential issues that could arise if someone with high privilege (supermod for example) has their identity vanish leaving a community minus whatever function they might have been performing (this user is allowed to send the bot commands, etc).
On a personal note, not having to jump through a bunch of hoops intended to screen out bad actors just to access a community or group where you were already a member in good standing.
Beyond that, there's some people who really want to express their particular identity or brand online - for example I sometimes write using a particular name. If I could no longer use that name and not even access my account to tell people that, it would not help my audience find me or my back catalogue.
Beyond all those things, having access to my post history means I can look back at things - have you never sat and looked at old diaries or photos from when your were a child? Or been reminded of some event you enjoyed? Or even just wanted to check something went down like you remembered it?
I don't understand either. Not having any "social media features" like a profile site or "karma" is a big plus for me. I use my account for access and saving links, that's all I expect.
Well it is not old internet anymore. It's new generations and a lot more poeple here with lots more identies and wishes.
Because social media exists. There is identity attached to your online presence for the vast majority of people.
Really? I had my reddit account for 10 years, I dont think a single person remembers/recognizes my "identity". With smaller communities people actually knew eachother. Your name actually meant something.
I think what your_mind_aches is saying is that the mindset has changed. People who didn't know the internet before social media are more emotionally attached to having one single identity online. Even if in the case of reddit it's not necessarily linked to your real world identity.
Sometimes when I am unsure about a post/comment I click on the user profile and if I see 10yrs / 100K karma, it helps forms my opinion and trust of the user.
And that's how you end up cutting off your toes because Gallowboob said so.
I blocked them on Reddit as soon as I learned you could block people and I guarantee if they come to Lemmy they'll be the first people I block here.
I'm using they/them not for gender reasons but because there's no chance it was just one person running that account. Either multiple people or someone in tandem with a bot. And bots are people.
Yeah blocking the superusers on Reddit is the only way I can use it. It's insane how much a small amount of people will make up all the posts on /r/all
It's a planned feature if I'm not mistaken.