Through browsing, I've began to understand a few fragments of how the Fediverse works, instances, the way they communicate. It's quite ingenuous actually, specially the way they distribute communities across various servers, easily reachable from a single server via a "remote" format. Fixing one of the problems that the Forums of old had.

But while I can access, post and comment on a remote instance. From what I came to understand, I believe that that the instance I signed up on, will always be the 'local' one.

If for whatever reason, one were to migrate instances, leaving their local behind towards a new one, taking their account history and configuration with them. Is that possible?

Thank you for reading and have a fine day.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Account migration is not supported at the moment but is a feature that is being worked on afaik

[–] polaris64 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's possible with Mastodon (import/export feature), however it's up to the service in question to support such a system. Lemmy doesn't support this yet but I believe it's a planned feature.

[–] ArkyonVeil 3 points 1 year ago

Thanks for clearing it up. What is there right now isn't much, but it should suffice for the tech inclined userbase we have right now.

[–] dhork 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I understand how the Fediverse has instances, and how they communicate, and how you can (in theory) access the entire Fediverse from one account. But I don't do that, for a few reasons:

If I see a server with more than a handful of communities I am interested in, I want a presence there in case they need to defederate for a time for some reason.
I find browsing by "all" to be way too overwhelming on some instances. I find it easier to browse by "local".
Different instances have different moderation standards so if I am subbed to multiple communities there having an account makes it easier to keep the differences in mind
Jerboa can handle multiple logins.
It reduces confusion because I can grab the same handle in multiple places.

So, I have an account on multiple instances, even though I understand I only need one. I won't ever feel the need to migrate because I am already the same human in multiple contexts.

[–] DiligentCod 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it is possible but I have never done it.

https://joinfediverse.wiki/Moving_instances#:~:text=Log%20in%20to%20the%20account,Move%20to%20a%20different%20account.

[–] ArkyonVeil 3 points 1 year ago

Doesn't seem very practical, something like this being possible (one click from account settings) would be very useful for the decentralization of the platform.

[–] TurnItOff_OnAgain 3 points 1 year ago

It isn't built into Lemmy yet.