I don't feel that comfortable with Mastodon's decentralised concept. While the servers are decentralised accounts are tied to one server.
Who's behind a server, how commited they are to continue their service: Nobody knows. (Except for mastodon.social itself.)
With server-specific accounts, one's in the hands of the admins: When they decide to stop, the accounts' accumulated social capital is gone.
I'd love to have accounts you can migrate from one server to another without losing connections.
@andschwa Don't get me wronng, having decentralised servers is great, so we basically agree. I just opt for double decentralisation: Servers and accounts. I still see the danger of silencing: While I can migrate my account and take my followings with me, I can't take my followers with me. I still can toot on another server, but once Mastodon is large enough, noone hears my tooting after losing followers.
@fxneumann This is a really good point, and it's kept me thinking as well. It's peculiar when you cannot guarantee the longevity of your profile unless you register to another instance. Will be curious to see what comes out of this all.
@turumore I wonder why all the fancy buzzwords you hear all the time like cryptography and blockchain don't seem to be considered to ensure persistence of user accounts.
@fxneumann assume this is what the export/ import feature is for?
@alastair_hm2 Exporting is limited to exporting followings, not followers (which would need some kind of cryptographic protection to prevent the ability to import followers to multiple accounts).
@fxneumann yeah guess that makes sense
@fxneumann I think you can export your account data right? Maybe that includes contacts? It's early days and I suspect this is one of the issues they intend to address. My instance admin seems to love his role so that bodes well - I guess for some users it might be important to try a few out to see if they have confidence in one. Also it's important to support admins financially if they need it - the price we pay to not be advertised at :grin:
@chris Exporting is limited to exporting followings, not followers (which would need some kind of cryptographic protection to prevent the ability to import followers to multiple accounts).
I prefer systems (political as well as technological) that don't rely on the benevolence of the admins by having checks and balances. (Like decentralised servers as well as accounts.)
@fxneumann so with politics you don't like the civil service? There has to be some ultimate person manages things - even 'decentralised servers' still have owners and admins. You can set up your own not for profit org with a detailed ethical code of practice and funding stream and start your own instance that suits your values if you care so much. That's the beauty of mastodon really, sure some people might lose their instance but eventually stable long term ones will emerge
@chris I don't think there's still a need for an ultimate authority. Blockchain technology is an example of separating important data from the servers processing it without a single instance with supreme authority.
@fxneumann just as thousands of bitcoins have gone missing/lost forever from servers and wallets being corrupted or hacked then you'd have the same problems with user data not being secure. Even a block chain solution would still be dependent on servers, ISPs etc. The infrastructure or the web is never going to be some autonomous thing, it has owners and operators
@chris Yes, but you can improve portability to mitigate the reliance on just one server admin. At the moment, the server admin of my Mastodon instance is a single point of failure.
And yes, Bitcoins can be lost irretrievably and wallets be hacked, but so can login data.
@fxneumann seems that your position is based on some assumption that mastodon won't evolve
@chris Exactly the opposite: My assumption is that Mastodon will evolve, and that's why I write about were I see the need for change.
@fxneumann It's not like these aren't know issues
@chris Even better!
@fxneumann the same can be said about any centralized social network only in there case the issue is VC fonding where in Mastodon admin take pride on there instance so they are less likely to quit. Even if they had to because life someone else can take up the touch. that can't be said about centralized social network. if the company behind it gose down so does all there uses "social capital"
@gozes That's true, and decetralised servers are a step in the right direction – on the one hand. On the other hand: I don't know what skin in the game random Mastodon server operators have. mastodon.social seems super safe, as it may not fail to ensure the project's success -- just as Facebook Inc. or Twitter Inc. have the best incentives to keep their service working.
@fxneumann the other admis skin is building a community around what they like. right now all the instances are just general for people to join, however, specialty or topic instance are appearing. for example, I have a second account that's on an instance focus on people with a infosec background. that's a specialty instance
@fxneumann if you're not comfortable, host your own or use a different platform?
@ajroach42 If that's the answer Mastodon's doomed from the beginning. With "host your own" you'll never reach significant numbers of people.
@fxneumann you're in a minority of concerned people. To that concerned minority, I say host your own Or find a server you trust.
The platform is young (I mean, gnusocial isn't young, but this coat of paint is) and there will be hiccups. That's normal and natural.
Mastodon isn't twitter, no matter what the think pieces say. It's something weirder, less reliable, and way more interesting.
.@ajroach42 If self-hosting is the answer, Mastodon is doomed to fail from the beginning.
The problem of trust can never be solved but by systemic checks and balances. Among them should be an easy exit option allowing to switch instances without losing one's social ties.
@fxneumann exiting is easy. If you want people to follow you to your new instance, you have to let them know where that is.
There are a few thoughts on that front, and they are being experimented now. Automatically DMing your old followers is an option I've seen. Things may change, though. We're still young.
As for trust, if you don't want to self host, you'll likely need to wait for a more mature host to spring up. Someone that has an EULA and gauantees a minimum longevity.
@ajroach42 Technically exiting is easy. Socially, not so much the longer an account exists. Relying on contacts to manually switch is increasing the social cost of switching.
I read the discussion on this ticket – there are some great ideas in it: https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/177
@fxneumann I'll check it out.
@fxneumann While I don't agree with your concern about decentralization in principle (as it effectively prevents your scenario: no one rogue admin can silence you), I do agree that Mastodon needs much more seamless account migration. I want my username to be *my* username, not *a* username on a particular instance. I.e. federation wide, instead of instance specific. Included with this, of course, should be your network. This is, I think, key to proper decentralization.