@clacke @jxself That's one solution but it seems to me the best solution is to support importing your stuff from the old instance.

@shuttersparks @clacke I like that idea even better. It really should be done as part of the account migration process when the followers get moved over too.

@shuttersparks @jxself You could import old posts but then everything would have a new URL. A complete solution would require the original server to redirect requests for the original posts, as well as any other interacting servers understanding this and attaching likes, comments, repeats etc to the new URLs.

Not insurmountable, but also not just adding an import function. The new posts won't "be" the old posts in any meaningful way unless the network cooperates.

@clacke @shuttersparks URL changes are acceptable. A straight import gets them still associated with the current account. Coordination or cooperation in the form of redirecting old ones to new ones isn't something I want, and can't really have or expect anyway since the old one's shutting down.

@clacke @jxself True. I'd be okay with the URLs changing. But that's me. If someone is using Mastodon like a blogging platform to publish longer articles with permanence in mind, it's a problem.

@shuttersparks @clacke A solution has been found: I learned of the program Mastodon Archive https://github.com/kensanata/mastodon-archive via https://github.com/joyeusenoelle/GuideToMastodon/#whats-the-generally-accepted-mastodon-etiquette by way of @cynicaltj

I used this to make https://jxself.org/social.bobcall.me/

@clacke @shuttersparks That sounds like a great idea. Taking that idea and running with it for a moment, maybe such a program could also be used by the individual users as well, to take their exported ActivityPub stuff and generate a static site for placement somewhere. I'm currently running wget against the old instance be able to set up a mirror of it.