I imagine users go poof. Are their profiles stored in other federated instances? Is there a way to recover them or “import from backup” onto another instance?

If they don’t have an e-mail I imagine you can’t even notify them or authenticate them elsewhere so this “import from backup” even if technically feasible (idk if it is) would be impossible in practice due to authentication issues.

And communities, can you even notify all your subscribers to move to the “backup community” on another instance? I saw yesterday that a Mastodon server host said “I’m deleting this instance in 2 days” or something like that and I started wondering how shit would go on Lemmy.

  • Justin@lemmy.jlh.nameEnglish
    10·
    2 years ago

    The devs need to add an account migration feature so that you can export your account to another instance.

    Like, when you switch email providers, you just download all your emails and then set up a redirect so people emailing you go to your new account. It should be the same on Lemmy. I hope they add this feature, but I’m sure the devs are really busy right now trying to make sure lemmy.ml doesn’t go down tomorrow.

    • God@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      7·
      2 years ago

      yeah i’ve been seeing devs just scaling up massively and still getting hugs of death, pretty fun to watch, probably very much not as fun to experience first-hand. I’ve had servers die to hugs of death and it’s a very stressful experience.

        • God@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          thanks! my server is smaller than that, thinking of setting one up but kinda bored about it cuz i also have a very busy job and i’m poor so spending money and time on servering would be a bit counter-productive to my current pursuits

          on the other hand, it sounds fun, so i might do it anyway for the kekkities

          • Justin@lemmy.jlh.nameEnglish
            1·
            2 years ago

            At the moment, I’m setting up a Kubernetes config to make it easy to set up and scale, actually! I’m hoping that it helps lower the barrier to entry for people to run their own personal instances.

            I would say that hosting a public instance is a very big commitment though, since any users that sign up are depending on you to keep it running indefinitely.