How do things stand on account portability? If I sign up at a mastodon server, build an audience and network there, but later if the server admin changes its policies in unfavorable directions, can I migrate to a new server with all my contacts and reputation intact - even without the old admin's cooperation?
Mastodon has a "profile move" feature that moves all of your followers (on instances that support the protocol) to your new account. However, it will not move your toots (posts).
All of your account data can be exported, and everything except for toots (and media) can be imported.
Imagine a "Tweet to Fart" extension in the same vein as "Cloud to Butt". Lets see: "How could you refart that fart?! :angry_face: That's a terrible fart." Maybe I'm just juvenile but that might be funny enough to make twitter usable again.
In other words, I don't really mind "toot". It casts the medium with a healthy perspective on itself.
I would say that moving the posts is what worries me more about moving the account. I can refollow everyone, but I can't post hundreds (or thousands) of posts in their original datetime
Hi, yes, you can move your followers to another account, and export/import other contacts. Perhaps not entirely without the old admin's cooperation though.
I run my own instance in a convoluted way - I added ActivityPub source and sink support to my own webapp. But every user deserves account portability, not just those who know how to deploy and maintain a Mastodon instance.
