How do I apply an #ActivityPub archive of my posts from one account, and import them as posts on a different account?
The #Mastodon "export" feature (one of the account Preferences) says:
> You can request an archive of your posts and uploaded media. The exported data will be in the ActivityPub format, readable by any compliant software.
Okay, once we have this archive ("in ActivityPub format"), what is the "compliant software" to read it in as posts on my Mastodon account?
@bignose you can't move your posts from one masto account to another, if that's what you're asking
The idea is to publicly preserve posts made on an account, now that the account is going away (the server is closing down). So, yes I want to re-post the contents of the archive, to another account under my control.
Isn't the purpose of getting an archive ("in the ActivityPub format" apparently) to restore it "by compliant software", as Mastodon says?
@bignose I think misskey has this feature, try it with Sharkey or Catodon. Lmk if you learn anything, I'm curious
@bignose that's not currently possible.
So then @evan what is #Mastodon telling me when it says
> The exported data will be in the ActivityPub format, readable by any compliant software.
What "compliant software" is it referring to?
A feature like "restore posts and media from archive" seems the most obvious use of an archive of posts and media.
Is this a case of "we have backup implemented, but not restore"? wtf
@bignose, @evan is not the appropriate person to address for implementation details, he is one of the co-authors of the #ActivityPub spec, but has (probably?) little to do with #Mastodon development...
However you are correct that this is a case of export being implemented but import not... even by Mastodon itself. There may be other software that can read it, but I am not personally aware of any.
@bignose @devnull you're also mad because you want a feature we haven't specified for ActivityPub yet. I think it's important, but we don't have it. Maybe there is other compliant software you can use to set up a static archive or do statistical analysis, I don't know. I do know there's no way to backup from one server and restore on another.
@evan @bignose it's interesting wording though, as though it were almost idealistic in its presentation. "Build it and they will come", style.
That said I'd love to look into this format and see whether it's something @nodebb could consume at some later point in time. Fully addressing account portability would be a really nice stretch goal!
@bignose yes, that's correct. Every object in ActivityPub has an URL, and all of the other servers on the network expect that object to be at that URL. We don't have a way yet to say, now this thing is on this other server. There might be a way to do that this year, but it doesn't exist now.
Thanks @evan.
Crucially, for the purpose of "the instance for this account already closed down, I want my posts to be restored from this archive" is to figure out how a post can continue to have identity as the same post, even when the original instance is no longer responding.
@bignose yeah, I wish I had better news for you.
@bignose honk, the server I wrote, will import posts from a mastodon export, but you may not like it.
Now that's a way to set expectations @tedu
@bignose As more knowledge people than me have told you, true migration of posts seems not to be possible. There's no way to retain post URLs if your instance disappears. 1/
@bignose But there are some imperfect stopgaps!
I haven't tried it, but there is Mastodon Content Mover https://mastodoncontentmover.github.io/ by @tokyo_0 (ht @carrideen) 2/
@bignose When my old instance was shutting down, I wrote a static-site generator for Mastdon archives called #fossilphant, so I can self-host my own archives. See for example https://www.interfluidity.com/microblog-archives/econtwitter/ 3/
@bignose I tried to make it really easy to use! I'd love it if you'd give it a try: https://github.com/swaldman/fossilphant /fin