Hi, my train of thoughts started with my "home" instance Lemmy.ml disabling the creation of communities. I did write this already somewhere as a comment, but I think it deserves its own topic ;)
TLDR; I have 2 big questions: do admins have too much power? Should an account be easily transferrable to another instance?
To be clear: I have no problems with that decision. I understand it. What I am writing here is a theoretical issue.
Let me explain:
So, the current problem is not being able to create a community on Lemmy.ml, so on Lemmy in general, for all Lemmy.ml member. The solution is easy. Create and alt account on another platform, create the community, make my prime account the mod et voila, problem solved.
However, my “problem” is theoretical. I joined Lemmy.ml “per accident”. I did not pick it for a specific reason, I just stumbled on it (being a Reddit refugee) and selected this instance. (I know now that this instance will always “do good” because it is run by the creators of Lemmy (I did not know this when joining) - so my issues will probably always be theoretical FOR ME, but hear me out. ). If someone would join another instance, and that instance would suddenly stop providing essential services of Lemmy (let’s say, commenting, participating, cross posting or any other feature) OR if the instance would stop alltogether, you kinda loose everything. Yes, you can create an alt, but your post/comment history belongs to the other, severely limited in features, account - or the account is lost forever. I think, from a theoretical standpoint, I would feel better if I was able to “move” my main account to another instance. Not sure how this would technically work (federating accounts might be a huge GDPR / privacy nightmare), but it would give me some peace of mind knowing that I can’t be… euh… fucked over by an instance admin.
I know you can run your own instance to circumvent these issues. I am considering it since my account is stil fairly new, but it seems like a tedious thing, both in technical knowledge as in financial terms. And with the federation/discovery thingy that is around on a not-well-used instance, this is even more difficult.
My 2 cents. Not sure if I’m missing something and/or if someone agrees/disagrees with me?
How would you transfer an identity between an instance with open registration and one that required admin approval? Or CAPTCHA? Does the old instance continue to store your user or delete it? What about content you've posted, should that be redirected to your new user?
This isn't a theoretical problem, it's a technical and administrative one.
Agreed. But is it something we should be thinking about, or is the general feeling: "infamousbelgian, you are so badly overthinking right now..."