See also here.

Yeah, if ActivityPub could support nomadic identity out of the box, that would be great.

can you give me an ELI5 of what nomadic identity does? I gave a glance at that page and just wound up with more questions lol

Basically, right now an identity (or account) is tied to a server. If the identity was tied to a cryptographic key instead, it and all of its content can be migrated to another server through an automated process. Both servers would have to authenticate the process with a public handshake, but essentially you would be able to move your account to another server - or even tie several accounts together into one identity.

Okay which instance is shutting down this time? I'm out of the loop here.

Don't know why you've been downvoted. You're absolutely right.

Instance admin here, this is backwards. Instance costs increase with the number of users because we don't sell ads. The only people we want signing up for accounts on our instance are people who are excited to be there, and intend to bring their singular wit and conversational A-game.

Dammit! No wonder I'm not wanted!

That’s another thing. It should be easier and more obvious to participate in a server, not just as a user but also as a donor. I think there’s a lot more people willing to chip in, but it should be upfront and easy to do.

Pretty sure it's .ml

Maybe not but when you ask, no one will answer but when you claim something that isn't true, people will go out of their way to correct you so let's see.

The secret is not letting people know you've deliberately given the wrong answer

Having lost two of my accounts to recent instance shutdowns, I 100% support this idea.

@Demigodrick@lemmy.zip does a great job posting monthly updates with ways to donate, hopefully others can start or already are doing so.

I think lemmings.world announced a few months ago that they were shutting down in July, but I'm not sure of that's what the meme is referring to

Murphy's law FTW

(For people out of the loop, it's actually Cunningham's Law, I'm just referencing a joke)

Is that true or are you deliberately giving a wrong advice?

Frankly, I'm interested in learning more about who the admins are and how they can keep affording to shed money onto their instances.

donations

Piefed.europe.pub disappeared without a trace. Not even a notice I think.

Joker points out that the borg are a real person.

You take that back! (/s)

You say this a lot, don't you?

Lately it's struck me as funny, as I watch the world burn.

Normally, your Fediverse identity is tied to an account. It is an account. And that account is tied to a server. Thus, your Fediverse identity is tied to a specific server.

Now imagine your Fediverse identity is not tied to a server. It can exist simultaneously on multiple independent servers. And I don't mean a Lemmy instance on a Beowulf cluster. I mean two, three, four or more Lemmy instances.

mindequalsblown.gif

Also, I don't mean dumb copies that exist after you've moved someplace else. I mean clones. Live, hot, bidirectional, near-real-time, bidirectional backups. And they're still all the same identity with all the same content, always.

mindequalsblown.gif

Okay, so you're on lemmy.dbzer0.com. Let's assume you also have a clone on lemmy.foo.social and one on lemmy.bar.social.

The identity of your original on lemmy.dbzer0.com is nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com.

The identity of your clone on lemmy.foo.social is nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com.

The identity of your clone on lemmy.bar.social is nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com.

A hypothetical nomadic Lemmy will see them all as one identity. One account, basically, only that it isn't one account because you can't have one set of login credentials across three fully separate servers. The logins are separate, they are individual, but everything else is kept in sync between the instances.

mindequalsblown.gif

So, what exactly happens when your identity is nomadic?

You send a new post. This post, as part of your identity, is automatically sync'd over to lemmy.foo.social and lemmy.bar.social.

You join a new community. This community membership, as part of your identity, is automatically sync'd over to lemmy.foo.social and lemmy.bar.social. Still, that community will only list one you and not three of them.

You change some settings on lemmy.dbzer0.com. These changes are automatically sync'd over to lemmy.foo.social and lemmy.bar.social.

mindequalsblown.gif

Okay, wait, now comes the real kicker. The reason why all this exists.

So lemmy.dbzer0.com goes offline for whichever reason.

But fret not, you can still carry on! For you can log into either of your clones and use them just like the original!

mindequalsblown.gif

So instead of logging into your account on lemmy.dbzer0.com, you log into your account on lemmy.foo.social. And you can use it just like the original with all the same communities and all the same settings and whatnot. It's all there.

Whatever you do is attributed to nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com. Even though lemmy.dbzer0.com is offline. Even though you do it on lemmy.foo.social.

mindequalsblown.gif

Also, whatever you do on lemmy.foo.social is automatically sync'd over to lemmy.bar.social.

Now, wait for it: lemmy.dbzer0.com comes back online. And everything you've done on lemmy.foo.social while lemmy.dbzer0.com was offline is sync'd back to lemmy.dbzer0.com.

yourheadasplode.gif

But what if lemmy.dbzer0.com shuts down for good? When it doesn't come back? How can your identity stay nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com then?

It doesn't have to.

You log into one of your clones. Then you make that clone your new main instance, your new original.

Your identity becomes nylo@lemmy.foo.social. The identity of your clone on lemmy.bar.social becomes nylo@lemmy.foo.social. All your posts and comments are re-attributed to the new name of your identity. All communities that you're a member of switch to listing you as a member with the new name of your identity.

kermitflailing.gif

Sounds revolutionary. New? No.

This was thought up by the Friendica inventor Mike Macgirvin as early as 2011. He actually wrote a whole protocol around it: Zot. And he first implemented it on a fork of a Friendica fork named Red (later Red Matrix, now known as Hubzilla) in 2012. Almost four years before Mastodon. Five years before ActivityPub.

whatthevgcatsatomicfbomb.jpg

Almost everything that he made after Hubzilla, including both Hubzilla descendants that still exist today ((streams) from 2021, Forte from 2024), are fully nomadic. (streams) uses a protocol named Nomad, essentially a much newer version of Zot, but incompatible to Hubzilla's Zot6, so it got a new name. Forte uses nothing but ActivityPub for just about the same level of nomadicity.

By the way, nomadic identity can also used to move an uncloned, single-instance identity from one server to another. In fact, this is a subset of nomadic identity (as opposed to its basic operation as you may assume) that's based on cloning. It involves creating a clone, making the clone your new main, demoting your old main to clone, then deleting your old-main-now-gone-clone in order to not leave any dead stuff behind.

Doesn't matter. Stuff like this happens all over the Fediverse all the time.

You haven't lurked on Mastodon much.

If only they would have told us right from the start!?1? :-P

- Rule 1

May glorious leader live forever.

There are definitely some weird people who want the clout of owning a "popular" instance, but mark my words they will flame out soon enough if popularity is the root of their desire. Instance management is a lot of tedious work and if you don't have a passion for facilitating conversation and connecting people you're not going to last. This isn't Reddit where a powermod can just sit there and do the bare minimum for free.

I'm still waiting for online payment by throwing cash at the screen to be developed.

You specifically are not wanted because our sensors detected you were carrying a briefcase labeled "bribe money" that was actually full of borg nanites.

Look, when I picked up the case, they swore it was only tribbles!