I’m still quite lost when it comes to the fediverse. I created an account on the main instance, however as I understood more how it works, it seems like certain instances that interest me are “defederated” from this instance, and vice versa. So now I want to move my account to be able to see those instances, however I want to keep my follows and my posts I have on this instance. Is that possible? I read that fediverse is resistant to censorship in this regard, so there must be something I’m missing here.
You can export your subscriptions in the settings, not your posts though.
Like others have said you really can’t move, just make a new account
I’ve been on lemm.ee this whole time and I like it. I definitely recommend it if defederation is an issue for you since sunasaurus stance on defederation is it is the big red button and users should have the choice of making a blocklist (unless it’s stuff like illegal content thats defederated). You can even keep your username if it’s not taken on that instance and the beauty of the fediverse is you can move instances and create account as many times as you want
As for having a main instance. No such thing. This picture really helped me understand how federation works as the email anology people use didn’t really help me.
Anyways lemmy.world is just another instance, it just happens to the be the biggest. Lemmy.world ,.ee, .ml, whatever lemmy instance you can think of are completely independent. Think of them as separate websites if that helps. But due to the fediverse protocol they can all share content back and forth, it really is crazy when you think about it
But let me grab our welcome to lemm.ee to post if you wanna see if we’re a good fit for you, if not, happy instance hunting
Edit: Here’s the Welcome to lemm.ee post
- There’s no “main” instance, lemmy.world is the largest one, though
- You can check who have defederated with lemmy.world (or any other instance) here
- As to your main question: You can’t move an account, ActivityPub (and Lemmy) don’t have such a feature. There are tools that can migrate your community subscriptions from one account to another (quick search shows for example this), but there’s no way to transfer posts/comments. The best you can do is add a link to your bio saying your previous account is @[email protected], at the same time, on your old account you can put a notice that the account is no longer used and people can find you on the new one.
I see, thank you for the explanation. That does make it a little more convoluted than I had hoped. But I suppose it’s either that or host an instance myself.
Anyway, thank you.
Well, you can’t. But you can transfere all your settings/subscribes/blocks etc.
Go to your account settings and hit “export” and save the file.
Make a new account on another instance
Go to that account’s settings and import the file from your old account.
Thank you! That explains a little. Follow up question: If the new instance has defederated or “blocked” some community that I am following on this instance, will I still be able to follow them if I import the saved file?
If it has defederated from an instance you will no be able to see any posts from this instance‘s community
I’m not sure instance hopping is available yet, but you can always just sign up for the instance you want. However, Lemmy.world is not the “main” instance, Lemmy.ml is. Lemmy.world is the largest instance, which can cause confusion, but it definitely takes an active stance against Marxists and even Anarchists, which is why it is defederated from some of the major leftist instances.
Which instance are you trying to join? Which defederated ones from Lemmy.world do you want to see?
