RE: https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/115343246885448739

Rumors that the fediverse can't do mobile identity have been greatly exaggerated: #FEP_1580 is now in draft status - https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/1580/fep-1580.md

This is a proposal for how to migrate all your stuff along with you when you move instances.

The gist:

• Send a request to move along with a set of stuff you'd like to bring with you. Moderators (optionally) can, approve, send back a change request, or deny. If the changes look ok, start the move, if not, hey you avoided incompatible moderation. Should be possible to layer in any kind of bulk actions you might want: "everything except my DMs," "strip attachments," "only my favorite posts," "nothing," etc.
• keep a public collection of move events signed by both the source and target for durable, portable proof that you are the same person as the old account
• the new instance crawls your old account and grabs whatever you specified, and then posts a mapping from old URIs to new URIs.
• other instances can then immediately remap the URIs so e.g. future interactions get sent to the right place, and then gradually update their local versions over time, spacing out traffic.

Just using existing ActivityPub mechanisms. There are 6 new terms.

Bonus: lays the next steps to migrate to content addressed URIs, decouple accounts from instances, and merge and split accounts.

It being a draft means that there is a 60 day (or longer) public comment period, and feedback/edits/etc. Are very much welcome.
Issue: https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/issues/702
Discussion: https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/fep-1580-move-actor-objects-with-a-migration-collection/8111

#FediDev #MoveAllPosts

@jonny Thank you for putting in so much work to put this together. I hadn't realised you were the person who had shared it in the Github thread, when I saw it there. It looks really good, and it's great to see that it's compatible with earlier FEPs like https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/ef61/fep-ef61.md, too.

It's good that this includes some ability for the new/target instance to decide whether it wants to accept content—target instance admins were the main source of pushback I got when building my (very basic) ...

@jonny ...migration tool a few years back. Most of the objections were unfounded and based more on fear than reality.

Drawing on that experience, I wonder if by letting target admins decide whether or not to accept content separately from accepting a the overall migration, or which parts of a user's content they will or won't accept (allowing them to strip out DMs, for example, or media), is going to cause problems. Primarily that will be a moderation burden because admins fear they're going...

@jonny ... to be deluged with problem content when the reality is it's going to be a pretty small part of it. I'm concerned the consequence of this is going to be friction against the whole feature, and a knee-jerk reaction that says "this just shouldn't happen at all" rather than working with you to find a way to make it work.

It could also create a situation where a user can think their content will be migrated but afterwards discover that only half of it is there. ...

@jonny .... Really, if a target instance isn't going to accept a user's content that should be flagged at the start, not once the account has been migrated but the moderator is later considering whether to accept the content as well. (Am I misunderstanding the proposed sequence of events?)

In general, while I appreciate there needs to be a way to prevent abuse and accommodate admin's concerns about problem content, admins are a big part of why this feature doesn't exist, and I'm concerned ...

@jonny ... giving them the ability to accept only part of people's content and/or make that decision after the user has otherwise migrated is going to empower them to basically torpedo what you're trying to do, by causing bad experiences for users (whether or not intentionally), demanding the ability to moderate and then not being willing to handle the moderation traffic, or just hindering people's ability to move their content. ...

@jonny ... There's also privacy concerns. Few admins will read posts or people's DMs unless something is flagged as abuse, but it looks like what's proposed here puts all of people's content in front of admins and asks them to review it, which is much more invasive than typical use of the instances otherwise.

If instances accept people signing up and posting without review, I question the grounds on which they want to be able to review all of someone's posting history before allowing migration.

@jonny ...To cut a long thread short, my personal feel is that while abuse should be prevented and migration should be managed in a way that respects rate limits and doesn't overload instances, a lot of other instance admin concerns are more fear than reality, and may lead to a solution that raises privacy concerns and the risk of unexpected user data loss, while empowering admins to hinder a process they basically don't want to happen, undermining the whole concept of content portability.

@jonny Hi there. Just looked at this again and saw the line "Actors must have some means of changing their mind about a move if the terms of moderation are unacceptable to them after the target instance reviews any imported content."

Not sure if that's new or if I missed it before (sorry if I did! ‍️), but it could take care of a lot of the concerns I mentioned. Was thinking too maybe instances could say on their about pages about policies for migrated content ("we strip all media" for example).

@jonny What happens with this now? Sorry if I'm asking you something that's already documented elsewhere (if it is, am happy to read there instead) - I don't know how these kinds of proposals typically progress, but it would be good to see this keep moving forward. Appreciate all the work you've put into it