A thing that will need more attention in conversations about "portable identity" on the fediverse is the whole "I want to move my posts" feature request.
A problem is that I've seen many such conversations breeze past the folks running the instance to which the posts are meant to move.
A request to "move my posts" is, essentially, a request for the destination instance to review all those posts against their policies. Or, an assumption that the destination instance will neglect to do that for the sake of expediency.
Most instances are not simply fungible service providers for posts. Folks running instances have opinions, impose policies, and moderate content.
While you may own your words in a fediverse post - the publishing & hosting of those words is a negotiated agreement with the admins of a fediverse instance.
This is not usually a customer service relationship. Just because you posted something on one instance doesn't mean you should automatically expect another instance to welcome your posting history with open arms.
None of this is my sole realization. I've seen multiple instance admins express this stuff now. I think it bears frequent repeating.
@lmorchard That's actually a really good way to put it. For a while I was kinda annoyed at the idea of basically starting from scratch if I had to move instance but I had never considered it from the perspective of admins who'd potentially have to go through my posts to make sure that stuff I said/images I posted on Site X are 100% kosher with Site Y. When I'm already clocking nearly 3.6k posts that's just a nightmare for anyone to sift through.
Even if it's not your sole realization it's good to have that perspective out there, and thank you for helping me understand it better.
Really, in general, I think there is a great big blob of unresolved tension here on the fediverse between folks wandering in who expect a customer service relationship - or at least a "my eyeballs are valuable" relationship - and find that folks running instances are not inclined to simply act as obligatory ushers.
Almost forgot I blogged about exactly this, while under the influence of a large dose of cold medicine
@lmorchard
I honestly would like a compromise where it's easy to have an AP-software!readable archive for the user to download and keep, but import feature can be third party but more importantly user must review which posts to go into the new instance (or not at all) but at least they have a copy of their life online.
@lmorchard A couple stopgaps to cover a lot of important needs that exist now: when an instance is shutting down, other instances should be able to review its policies, and decide whether to open their doors to post imports from that particular server. And it should be easy to export your posts in an HTML archive that can go up on any web host.
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