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Feddit.UK has finally kicked the bucket- and what happens next. (lemmy.world)

submitted 10 months ago by 20cx12@lemmy.world to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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TL;DR, Feddit.UK is down, we're working on making a fun replacement!

A number of days ago, feddit.uk had kicked the bucket.

The community on there had noticed months ago that the owner was inactive. This was around September (Going off of memory). So they arranged to set up a new community run by the same feddit.uk admins (except the owner, the only one who had host access) which would replace it. However, on the weekend as Quackhouse was going to be launched, the owner responded to an email and made two users admins. Emperor and GreatAlbatross. However, they did not have access to the console, just lemmy adminship. Ever since, the owner has been AWOL. The community were too afraid to go back to setting up Quackhouse incase the owner showed up again.

Unfortunately, that wariness and being afraid led to the worst case scenario happening - Feddit.uk has dropped offline. We believe the instance has reached some form of file size cap. It was basically an aeroplane flying with dead pilots before then. And it appears that aeroplane has crashed.

If you are from the feddit.uk refugee base, please join the new community whenever it is ready. Do not sign up now. We are busy and still setting up and don't want an influx of new users just yet.

For now, sit tight. I'll update this post whenever it's up and running and ready for sign-ups. I am not posting the name for now so we don't get overrun with sign ups. But we would love to invite you back to our community when it's set up.

The new community will have it's own unique identity that doesn't have to piggyback off of Lemmy and Reddit for it's name. But it will still aim to be the main UK lemmy instance that feddit.uk was. By all means, it will be a full lemmy instance, still federated, etc. It should be the same experience as feddit.uk. But we actually do have fun plans to create a nice sense of identity with that instance if all goes well! I will warn you, it does have a silly name, but that was the name that was decided upon.

We look forward to having new members. All are welcome, whether or not you were from Feddit.UK or not. We will have the theme be a UK-based lemmy instance.

I'll try and remember to update this post when we are ready.

~20CX12

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[-] sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf 127 points 10 months ago

Sucks to see the flagship British instance go, but at the same time, I like the idea of all the Reddit references being confined to the past.

[-] 20cx12@lemmy.world 48 points 10 months ago

I agree. A big objection was if we became big, reddit might be able to sue us.

The whole aim of this new instance is actually trying to see if we can attract some people to come onto it without having to really know what lemmy is. Feddit.uk sounded like a reddit knockoff, and having to explain it sounded confusing. If we could spread the word about the new instance without having to mention federation, as to not be intimidating, people may see the content provided from federation and be happy anyway, and not question the inner workings until they are settled.

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[-] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago

Has enough time passed for a Friendster reference to be ok?

Fedster.uk

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[-] rmuk@feddit.uk 81 points 10 months ago

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." - Feddit.UK

[-] Primarily0617@kbin.social 54 points 10 months ago

It was basically an aeroplane flying with dead pilots before then

aren't we all

[-] Vub@lemmy.world 46 points 10 months ago

Wow. If this isn’t a perfect example of the possible problems with federated networks I don’t know what is.

I’m still for it of course. But it has to be done right and this is far from that.

[-] kilgore_trout@feddit.it 36 points 10 months ago

Twitter could go permanently offline tomorrow as well, for all we know.

[-] viking@infosec.pub 27 points 10 months ago

I sure hope it does, nobody needs that cesspool.

[-] BluesF@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago

It is looking increasingly likely that at some point it will just collapse.

[-] exocortex@discuss.tchncs.de 29 points 10 months ago

it is possible now to copy your data to another account on another instance.

in the future lemmy might even support something like having your account automatically backed up to another instance. Similar to a backup email address at your main email address.

[-] Scrollone@feddit.it 16 points 10 months ago

It's possible to backup your data, but you have to do it beforehand. There's no chance to save your data once the server goes down.

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[-] pbsds@lemmy.ml 26 points 10 months ago

All the instances that popped up during the reddit exodus were not that thought through. Once the feddiverse stabelize around sustainable communities it'll work better

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[-] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 24 points 10 months ago

It's not a problem with federated platforms, it's a problem with any new platform.

Anything that's been around for less than a year is not too likely to stick around for a year.

Something that's been around for 10 years is likely to stick around for another year.

Time will filter out the instances that stick and the ones that don't. Users will go to the older instances because those are the ones they can trust to still be up for the foreseeable future.

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[-] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 46 points 10 months ago

Shows once again that federation is useful since other servers are running and you could post that message.

On the other hand, sucks if you had your main account on that server because now you start from scratch. I am not even talking about your lost posts and comments, more about community subscriptions. Quite annoying to get that all in place again. I used to have an account on the fmhy.ml instance, it was not fun...

[-] bufalo1973@lemmy.ml 10 points 10 months ago

The answer, in time, is to have a P2P network of federated clients/servers.

[-] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

So, Usenet. Coming full circle.

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[-] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 45 points 10 months ago

If you leave it too long, folks will just register for another instance, and all momentum will be gone.

I wouldn't take too long getting the rescue boat out when folk are in the ocean....

[-] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 22 points 10 months ago

Yes, it literally happened with FMHY's Lemmy instance. Lost access to the original domain, started again from scratch on a different domain, but their users didn't come back and already moved in to other instances.

[-] 20cx12@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

Unfortunately we had planned on getting the boat out before that happened. But it happened anyway. For now the instance seems to be back up, but this was a wake-up call.

[-] SomeoneElse@lemmy.ca 6 points 10 months ago

My thoughts exactly; from a moderator standpoint it just doesn’t make sense to wait for another UK dedicated instance to open at an unspecified point in the future. It’s too much of an unknown quantity. If I need to move/copy the communities I moderate while I can still access them on feddit, I’m moving them now and to an established, decent sized instance - it’s my best chance of not having to do this again in the future.

[-] Illecors@lemmy.cafe 35 points 10 months ago

As a fellow UK instance owner - gimme a shout if you need a hand with the setup!

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[-] AlexJD@feddit.uk 29 points 10 months ago

Somehow it's up

[-] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 28 points 10 months ago

As I mentioned in another discussion, the fediverse needs to work like crypto mining pools, you join the pool of servers that share the data load, but you're just there for data redundancy, users don't "sign up to your server", they "sign up to the website" that all servers are hosting together, if you go offline another server has your data so the website never goes down in the end.

[-] kilgore_trout@feddit.it 13 points 10 months ago

I believe the idea behind different servers not meshing but federating, so they can have different focuses and different moderation stances.

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[-] BluesF@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

This seems like a much better way, in many ways it would be more robust. There would be problems though... This would be even more vulnerable to EEE. Disputes/hostile action between servers could damage the whole website (I'm talking about maliciously hosting CSAM for example).

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[-] Blackmist@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

Yeah, unless I own all my own data, the Fediverse doesn't really solve anything. Sure, I could host a server just for me, but if everyone did that would it even work? Or would it collapse under the load of all the data whizzing about behind the scenes?

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[-] kpw@kbin.social 23 points 10 months ago

feddit.uk seems to be online.

[-] Critical_Insight@feddit.uk 8 points 10 months ago

Can confirm

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[-] ButtonMcLemming@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago

Feddit.uk is now back up. I just checked as of now.

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 14 points 10 months ago

I wouldn't get too excited just yet.

It came up a few times yesterday and quickly went down again.

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[-] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 18 points 10 months ago

I will warn you, it does have a silly name, but that was the name that was decided upon.

Damn, I was almost going to suggest some stuff. (chippym.uk - chippy, UK, a rodent...)

Serious now. I'm glad that federation means that people aren't putting all their eggs into the same basket; sure, feddit.uk going MIA is a loss, but just imagine if it was a non-federated platform. Hopefully the old users will be able to build their new home in the new instance.

[-] dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago

The UK has fallen billions must now lurk

[-] GreyShack@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago

Thanks for the update and for the work in building the new instance!

I'll be keeping my eyes open for further news.

[-] stefenauris@pawb.social 10 points 10 months ago

Good luck and good work!

[-] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

What happens to the accounts and communities that were on feddit.uk? I made an account there to create !hellointernet@feddit.uk, but I spend most of my time on sh.itjust.works. Are there any tools to move existing content from the old site to the new site in a (somewhat) cohesive manner, or are we starting over from scratch?

[-] Tatters@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago

I assume no-one, including the feddit uk admins, can access the server to copy anything off it, so it will all be lost.

[-] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Isn't one of the benefits of federation that content is backed up in multiple places?

For example, I can still view all the content at https://sh.itjust.works/c/hellointernet@feddit.uk, despite not being able to access https://feddit/c/hellointernet.

The Hello Internet community was tiny and not very active, so it's no big deal to start over from scratch, but it might be worth looking into for some of the larger communities which had compiled large quantities of information.

[-] magnor@lemmy.magnor.ovh 8 points 10 months ago

You can see the content but not, afaik, move the community or take ownership of it. I'm afraid you'll have to recreate it somewhere more stable.

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[-] squid_slime@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

Will there be contingency to stop this from happing with other instances?

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago

Will there be contingency to stop this from happing with other instances?

That depends how each instance is set up, just like any other website.

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[-] 20cx12@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

We're making a contingency for the new instance

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[-] Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 10 months ago

Good luck guys!

[-] ilovecheese@feddit.uk 7 points 10 months ago

I will warn you, it does have a silly name

Why though? A catchy and memorable name, I understand, but why silly? Who wants to say to people they belong to the 'quackhouse' instance, or whatever?

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[-] weeahnn@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

yikes. hope this gets sorted out soon

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