If you are still looking for an alternative, https://lemmy.zip/ is a solid choice. Similar moderation policy than lemm.ee.
Monthly reports: https://lemmy.zip/post/39959863
Lots of lemm.ee users moving there: https://lemmy.zip/post/40323214
If you are in the UK (where lemmy.zip is geoblocked due to UK laws), https://feddit.uk/ is a good option.
You can export your subscriptions, blocks and saves from “Settings - Import/Export settings” and then import them on your new account.
No, Lemmy has a memory hole problem right now. All the content you created is only on the servers online and federated at the time you created it. Once those servers go offline, for any reason, that content is gone
As far as I understood, the already posted/federated content is stored by each instance in its database. The pictures/media might be gone but the text should be copied around depends on (de)federation policies
Yes that’s correct, new instances don’t backfill old content. Only the servers online and federated at the time of posting will have the content.
If you migrate to a new instance that wasn’t online or federated earlier it won’t have your old content
Not quite right there. The comments exist on all the other federated servers as they’re sent out as part of the ActivityPub protocol. The problem is there will no longer be an easy way to aggregate them. Posts may disappear. But comments won’t.
There is no backfill mechanism. Only the servers online and federated at the time of posting will have the content. New servers will not. If you move to a new server it won’t have your old content
I’ve considered setting up a static read-only copy of lemm.ee, but without being able to host this on the original domain i don’t think it’ll be of much use. i already reached out to @sunaurus@lemm.ee to see if he would be interested in something like this, doesn’t seem like anything was planned from his end so far.
If that means making sure old content is still reachable in an “authoritative” way (eg.: being able to retain some sort of permaURL), I’m all for it and would wish you all the best luck.
My idea was to serve it in a way that would allow ActivityPub clients to resolve content still, while having a light static render for other clients for local content.
For content on other instances it would probably require some kind of lightweight redirection service towards the original item to be set up to prevent breaking those URLs.
This could probably be built just from scraping, without requiring database access.
Incorrect, that content is mirrored to any of the instances that federated with Lemm.ee and will continue to be accessible; although if you interact with any of it after Lemm.ee is gone, that interaction (vote, comment) will only be visible on the instance on which you did it.
If instances A B C are online and federated when you post, then A B C have copies of the data
Let’s say A shuts down and you move to a new instance D
Only B and C have your old content. D has none of your data. There is no backfill mechanism
If in the future B and C go offline (eventually they will) then the data is gone. Maybe in a archive.org snapshot.
Even in the future if D E F G still are going strong and Lemmy is thriving all the content that only A B C saw is gone. It’s a bitrot problem