I am not as much of a free software user as I was in the past. There was a time where almost all of the technology I used was open source. That is no longer the case (I am heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem) but I still try to use FOSS whenever I can.

One of those cases is with social media. I’ve never been a big social media person, but I did like being on Twitter. I travel a lot and it was a nice way to keep in touch with people when I was on the road. I could get my usual “table for one”, pull out my mobile and not feel so lonely. I even interacted with some famous people. Not always in a good way (Eric Idle once called me the C-word: count) but it could still be fun.

When Twitter dove headfirst into the toilet, I left. Being a FOSS enthusiast I tried out Mastodon, but I never really got into it. I ended up getting an invite to BlueSky, and that was pretty cool. It reminded me of Twitter in the early days.

But I decided to work on learning how to navigate Mastodon.

Unlike other social media sites, Mastodon is not just one “instance”. It is an interconnected federation of servers, the “Fediverse”, and to get started you have to choose an instance on which to create an account. Most people when they start out choose mastodon.social, which is a very large instance operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit.

Now in most Mastodon clients you can see three main views: just posts from people you follow (I refused to call them “toots”), posts that have been boosted on your instance, and posts from the Fediverse at large.

It is important to point out that most of those posts are unmoderated and so a particular instance may choose to block posts from sites like mastodon.social. You’ll still see any posts from people you follow on that site, but you won’t see content in general.

I decided to look for another instance and ended up getting an account on Fosstodon. It was an instance for FOSS nerds, and I began to really use Mastodon on a daily basis. I try to support the free services I use so I signed up on Patreon to be a sponsor at the $10/month level.

This went well for over a year. I started finding people to follow, and I really dig the community. So much so that I ended up deleting my BlueSky account. While I liked the fact that “famous people” are now on BlueSky, I didn’t want to invest my time just to have it pull another Twitter. With the Fediverse I should be able to continue no matter what happens, since it should be easy to switch instances, right?

Turns out that it is easy to switch.

Yesterday, I asked what I thought was an innocuous question:

Does anyone know where to buy good quality “Slava Ukraini” t-shirts where some of the funds go to helping with the war?

I try to keep politics out of my posts for a number of reasons, but I wanted to find some way to express my support for Ukraine. Not only is it the right and moral thing to do, my grandfather was born in Minaj (Mynai) which is now in Ukraine. When he was born in 1910 it was part of Hungary, and his family identified as Hungarian, but I still feel kinship with the people of Ukraine.

Folks that know me also know that I wear the same outfit every day: black pocket t-shirt and jeans. For me to consider wearing something else is a big step for me and my mild OCD.

Anyway, a Fosstodon user was upset about my post, asking how was it related to FOSS. I guess they had seen it on the server feed.

I had just been using my account as a general social media account. Sure I posted about FOSS as it has been a big part of my life, but I also talked about living on the farm, cocktails, pets, food, and other things. I didn’t realize that I shouldn’t be doing that on that instance.

I decided I should be courteous and just switch.

My friend Kevin runs an instance called RedWombat and he set me up with an account. But that means I have to start over, right?

Wrong.

I went to settings on my old instance and chose “Import and export”. There I was able to export CSV files of the people I follow (123) and the people I’ve blocked (1). You can’t download your followers (116) but I’ll get to that in a minute.

I was also able to download an archive of all my posts (653). I’m really not sure what to do with that but it can’t hurt to have it.

Then I went to my new instance, imported both files and I was back in business.

Now about those followers. On my old account I did one last post about moving instances, and then I went into “Account” settings and chose “Move to a different account”. This enabled me to pause my old instance and now there is a banner redirecting people to my new account.

Anyone who wants to follow me on the new instance will need to follow me again (and a whopping 14 people jumped at the chance). That is really the only downside of migration, but I kind of like it since only people who truly want to see my posts will make the effort. I figure in a month I’ll delete my Fosstodon account and the migration will be complete.

So, easy peasy. I was very happy to see that migration was actively considered when creating Mastodon and having tried it out I think it has been successful.