Sooo if you skim the previous posts on here, you’ll know that Feddit.uk’s only Admin (@Tom@feddit.uk) has been missing for a couple of months and in that time we were defederated by lemmy.world (although we’re back now) and we are one upgrade behind (just a minor fix) with one much bigger one whistling down the pipeline that may defederate us from other instances that upgrade (it may not but I know most of us don’t want to roll those dice).

We’ve tried various ways of contacting Tom and had no reply so we are forced to move forwards with moving to a new instance.

So, this is the plan:

Phase 1: Register a domain hndone by greatalbatross.

Phase 2: Sort out hosting - done by me.

Phase 3: Start instance - pending a final inspection of the hosting in the next day or so.

Phase 4: Onboarding - this will happen in waves:

Wave 1: Admins go in and make sure nothing is broken.

Wave 2: Moderators sign-up and re-start communities, get any bots running and just generally get a second set of eyes on things so we can be happy that we are ready to let people in.

Wave 3: We’ll start adding people already on Feddit.uk by hand - invitations will presumably have to go to inboxes on feddit.uk so we can ensure no-one is poaching a username for devilment. This will give the system a bit of a stress test.

Wave 4: We’ll let people apply to join and this should get things moving quicker.

Wave 5: Open registration.

Phase 5: Shuttering Feddit.uk - the Moderators will post pinned messages in their communities directing people to the new ones and then we’ll start the sad process of closing down the communities that we can.

Events should all start moving pretty quickly and, whole I may be being optimistic, we will likely reach the point of no return (specifically Tom’s return) in a week or two.

Current Admins:  

There’s a Matrix space that we’ll keep as a fallback in case if problems with the instant (although it will be renamed at some point). It also provides secure encrypted communication if anyone needed to flag anything up privately (and Matrix is built into Lemmy - add your Matrix ID into your profile and it provides a secure messaging button in your profile, so if you need to contact an Admin you can do it directly from there too, at least for me).

Sorry about all hassle, none of us wanted this but it is forced upon us and the feeling from everyone’s previous comments is that we didn’t want to lose what we have here, even if we have to rebuild in a new instance.

I’ll throw the floor open to comments and questions.

  • @noodle
    3•8 months ago

    Hope all is well with @Tom@feddit.uk and it’s just a case of him abandoning his post.

    Is there anything we can plan better for the new instance to prevent this happening again? It’s a bit disappointing to have to leave, since we will no doubt lose a portion of the userbase due to this.

    I’d like to follow, but don’t know if I will since I may as well just make an account on one of the larger instances.

    • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝OPAEnglish
      8•8 months ago

      Hope all is well with @Tom@feddit.uk and it’s just a case of him abandoning his post.

      Life gets in the way sometimes. Someone said he might have been moving house, which can be a horror show.

      Is there anything we can plan better for the new instance to prevent this happening again?

      Plenty - the wheels came off because there’s only one Admin, which would be easy to fix, if our Admin was active. So the first thing is to ensure there’s no single point of failure (to the point that I will change my will if needed) and that there’s always back-up. We’re also sharing out the tasks, to make sure no one person has to do too much and faces burn out.

      We’ll also ensure that the finances are transparent, so anyone donating knows where the money goes.

      We will also be as transparent as possible with decisions as we’ve seen (and experienced) how doing things without properly announcing them can cause problems.

      We’re also open to other ideas and suggestions.

      It’s a bit disappointing to have to leave, since we will no doubt lose a portion of the userbase due to this.

      We will, but what I hadn’t realised is that we’ll also gain users as some people have been unable to register an account.

      I’d like to follow, but don’t know if I will since I may as well just make an account on one of the larger instances.

      That’s your call, although the larger instances have problem of their own - the DDoS attacks, the All page being way too much stuff, etc. I have accounts elsewhere and I usually take a look around, go “oh boy” and slink back here. There are definite pluses to being on a smaller instance. If this place had disappeared without a replacement, I’d probably look for another instance that is of a similar size. Or you could get an account at the new place and one elsewhere, see what suits your needs. It’s unwise not to have a back-up, just in case.