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What happens to the community if the instance is deleted? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 2 years ago by invincible to c/[email protected]

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

New to lemmy, created a community on lemmy.world for a game that I enjoy. If I understand it right, if the lemmy instance goes down, your user data also goes down. Is this the same with communities as well? Is there a way to move your community to a new instance if that happens?

TIA.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Major communities would be lost if any site decides to shutdown.

Yes, I agree. But coming from Reddit, which is centralised and for profit, they have to ensure that their servers run full time.

On the open source side, i.e., here at Lemmy, anyone can build an instance. Which is great for a lot of reasons. But, hypothetically let’s say I have an instance and I can’t bear up the cost of running the server. I would like to close the server down and there exists communities with thousands of users. Then what?

I know it’s easier to spring the communities back up, but it’s just starting again from scratch, and also losing all the important information that had been posted on it.

EDIT: Also what about profiles that were made on that instance? Well the data would be completely lost right?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You're right that for-profit companies like Reddit have a strong monetary incentive to maintain their platform, which doesn't exist for anyone hosting a Lemmy instance. However, it depends on what you as a user is wanting from these platforms.

Reddit wants to make money and they will do whatever they want to achieve that goal. That isn't always going to be in the best interest of their users.

Lemmy's devs state one of their main goals is to avoid individuals or small groups from exerting too much control over the platform: Lemmy Docs

I get the sense that you're looking for some kind of online permanency. Maybe you'd be interested in a data hoarding community? As for myself, I've had many accounts on many forums and site over the years. Most don't exist anymore, and that's okay! I'm gonna be honest, I don't think I'd really want to read my 15 year old posts anyways...

EDIT: Also what about profiles that were made on that instance? Well the data would be completely lost right?

Yes. The user accounts would also be gone. Users would need to make completely new accounts on another server. Again, I'm fine with my current Lemmy account being ethereal. I think everything in life is to some extent.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I don’t think I’d really want to read my 15 year old posts anyways…

Lol

Yes. The user accounts would also be gone.

Well, I see. All I’m worried about some essential piece of information which could be useful for people will be lost. As an aspiring dev, you do sometimes spiral down into the Reddit hole, for getting a solution.