@zigg In my profile settings, there is an "export" and "import" feature for your own follows.

Bringing followers along: don't think that can technically work. You'd basically force your followers to follow some other account, which isn't compatible with how Mastodon is supposed to work.

I can see a "recommended follows" feature, maybe? But user choice about every single follow needs to stay.

@zigg It does seem like a rather difficult problem, so many questions pop up. For instance, the user probably wants to keep following the old account since they still wanna view the old toots. But now you need to implement something that has the effect of "any user I follow can make me follow any new account of theirs". Which could be abused to make you follows hundreds of accounts.

@zigg But how do you intend to make it so you can no longer post from the old account? Remember, every user can run their own mastodon instance. They 100% control it, and could just keep posting.

Things just get immensely more difficult in a federated scenario where you can't enforce rules except by clever protocol design. And you can't make posting from an account impossible after it was active once.

@zigg That's dangerous, though. Imagine that is built into the protocol. Then by sending just one such toot, you can completely take over an account + its followers when you get your hands on someone's computer for a brief second. Not compatible with 2FA either.

I'm just a bit more pessimistic about what you can do with protocols without fucking up badly. Again, federation is hard. ^^

@zigg I think it helps to see Mastodon as essentially eMail, but with a fancier interface and all mails being globally broadcast (Yes, even private ones.)

Sign in to participate in the conversation
Awoo Space

Awoo.space is a Mastodon instance where members can rely on a team of moderators to help resolve conflict, and limits federation with other instances using a specific access list to minimize abuse.

While mature content is allowed here, we strongly believe in being able to choose to engage with content on your own terms, so please make sure to put mature and potentially sensitive content behind the CW feature with enough description that people know what it's about.

Before signing up, please read our community guidelines. While it's a very broad swath of topics it covers, please do your best! We believe that as long as you're putting forth genuine effort to limit harm you might cause – even if you haven't read the document – you'll be okay!