Head twist: How do #ActivityPub server implementations like Mastodon not understand that account transfer means the whole digital content related to an account, not just selected pieces.
Analogy: This is operating like old school bank accounts where followers are direct debits and who you follow are standing orders. Your content (transactions) don’t move to your new bank but you have statements (export of data).
It’s digital and data plus 2023. We can do so much better. Wander pondering.
@dahukanna 100% agreed. Someone build an content import tool on top of Mastodon (in very early testing). But thats definitely not an excuse for it to be natively included like other servers do
@dahukanna 💯. The explanation though is pretty straightforward: Eugen, who makes the decisions about what funcationliaty to prioritize in mainline Mastodon, also is CEO of the non-profit that runs mastodon.social. From that perspective, not having a migration tool helps keep people there and ensure that remains the largest instance. So even though it's something people have clamored for since forever ... somehow it never really gets prioritized in mainline Mastodon. It's better than it was but still not what it should be. Meanwhile Calckey has implemented post importing, and @tokyo_0's made good project on post important with #MastodonContentMover -- so it's not like it defies the laws of physics for Mastodon to get a lot better.
Interestingly last week's reporting on Meta's Project 92 says it'll the ability to import posts from Mastodon. Who knows whether it actually well but they clearly know it's a valuable feature.
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