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.

  • TiffyBelle@feddit.ukEnglish
    30·
    1 year ago

    It’s really unfortunate it has come to this, but I’m glad people are putting in the effort to ensure the continuity of a UK-focused instance.

    Will be unfortunate to lose the “feddit.uk” domain name, as I found it pretty neat and there are several other localized instances with a similar domain. Hope the new one’s decent also.

    • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
      4·
      1 year ago

      There was a lot of discussion around the domain name! The new one is funny and quirky and is still explicitly UK based so it’s all good. I quite liked feddit too, but it does kind of have the association with Reddit.

    • HaunchesTV@feddit.ukEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I’m looking forward to no more of having feddit autocorrect to reddit, then me getting confused how I ended up in the wrong place because I didn’t check.

  • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.ukEnglish
    17·
    1 year ago

    Just wanted to add my thanks…

    This is a sanctuary for me as life’s too crazy for me to contribute meaningfully to this instance at the moment, but I really appreciate the effort going into this.

    I hope Tom’s ok in the real world, and maybe we can get the same domain name back one day.

    Thanks again.

    • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.ukOPEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      I hope Tom’s ok in the real world

      I’m sure he’s fine just busy. Life happens, often unexpectedly.

      and maybe we can get the same domain name back one day.

      Unfortunately, getting the domain name back won’t really matter as it is difficult to change without knock on federation issues (I believe). It would let us establish redirects to the new communities and might help pick up any stragglers.

  • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
    14·
    1 year ago

    Good work! It’s a shame it has to be done but ultimately Tom has helped us all to find that Lemmy is something we quite like, and even though it’s not something he wants to carry on with he’s provided the first stepping stone in wherever we go next. If we’ve not got a new name yet I’d vote for definitely keeping the .uk suffix as I find that really useful, though I’m not that fussed about the reddit-like name as that’s what a lot of us have decided to move on from!

    • Flax@feddit.ukEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      It does! It might have a UK flag within the icon, hopefully recognisable enough. The name doesn’t reference lemmy or reddit at all, instead we chose to carve out our own identity. Think similar to how beehaw or shitjustworks does it (minus the defederation threats that Beehaw had, we are 1000% committed to the fediverse and it does run lemmy).

      The hope with this is so someone can tell their friend about it without having to explain lemmy/the fediverse, so instead of saying “join lemmy!” You can easily say “join [redacted].uk!”, but again, it is definitely 100% federated and running lemmy.

      I hope I didn’t overcomplicate things 😖

      Once you migrate on there, it should be the same experience as Feddit.UK essentially

    • GreatAlbatross@feddit.ukMEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      We have a name, and you’ll be pleased to know it uses a .uk suffix. We’ll post it once we’ve at least got a landing page up.

  • Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de
    12·
    1 year ago

    Hello,

    Not a user of this instance, but good to see that you guys are handling this is a structured way. It’s a shame that you cannot just get the website from Tom, but at least this time it should be managed properly.

    • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.ukOPEnglish
      13·
      1 year ago

      but at least this time it should be managed properly.

      Yes, whether Tom came back or not we were drawing up plans to ensure there isn’t a single point of failure and that everything is more open and transparent. Plus we want to make sure the finances are all in place. All of which should mean any one of us could be hit by a bus and the instance keeps going.

  • lypticdna@feddit.uk
    11·
    1 year ago

    Shame it had to come to this as the instance was really picking up pace. That said, great work on those involved in structuring a solution. Appreciate the hard work going into it.

    As a moderator of a few groups myself and an advocate of Lemmy (especially our homegrown instance), I would be happy to support where I can above just moving the groups over, so feel free to reach out or let us know where the wider community can help.

    Cheers.

    • Hossenfeffer@feddit.ukEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      “Shame it had to come to this as the instance was really picking up pace. That said, great work on those involved in structuring a solution. Appreciate the hard work going into it.”

      All of the above from me too!

  • Tudou@feddit.uk
    10·
    1 year ago

    Sad it had to happen, but thanks very much to all involved for working on a replacement. Looking forward to signing up as this UK instance has been the best part of the ‘fediverse’ for me.

      • Flax@feddit.ukEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        We are hoping to use our small community identity as a strongpoint, imo the new instance has a lovable name :)

  • tkc@feddit.uk
    10·
    1 year ago

    Well done on taking the initiative guys! Sad that its come to this, but hopefully good comes out of this.

  • ns1@feddit.ukEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    Thanks everyone who’s helping to sort this out. I’m looking forward to seeing our shiny new instance soon

  • iamnotme@beehaw.org
    7·
    1 year ago

    I registered for feddit.uk ages ago, never got email to confirm despite emailing Tom twice.

    Here’s hoping I can get on the new instance.

    • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.ukOPEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep but you are exactly the kind of person we are looking to scoop up in Wave 4 or 5. If there are any issues you can message me or one of the other Admins and we’ll sort it out.

        • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.ukOPEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          No worries. What I’ll do is start a list and pop your name on it.

          Wave 3 is for those who have accounts here, so they claim the same username there. Wave 4 will be for those who are interested in an account who currently don’t have one and we’ll get you in at the start of that (or the end of Wave 3), we’ll then open up for people to apply directly. There’ll be a post about each Wave so everyone knows when we’ll get around to them.

          • iamnotme@beehaw.org
            1·
            1 year ago

            The bizarre thing is I can’t create a new account because my username already has an account that I created. But I can’t access that account because I can’t get a verification email, and I’ve emailed about this issue. Who knows, not me 🤷🏻‍♂️

  • Feral@feddit.ukEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    Nice, new name reminds me of brexit lol, but its fine, unless that was just a joke made for the post.

    • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.ukOPEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      I’m not expecting this to be plain sailing but, that it can be done at all is quite staggering to me.

      It should be pretty straightforward at least as far as the outside view is concerned (there’s likely a few long days ahead behind the scenes) and there are tools available to migrate your profile across, the real pain is that we can’t take the contents of the communities with us. So we’ll recreate all the communities but we are starting from scratch. Not ideal but I suppose, if it was going to have to happen, better it is done now,.only a few months in, rather than a few years down the road when that would be a punch in the gut.

      We’ll also be putting things in place that mean this can’t happen again.

    • JohnSmith@feddit.uk
      7·
      1 year ago

      I should add, this is a great case study of a federated system responding to a difficulty. Let’s jointly make this a positive case study.

      • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.ukOPEnglish
        8·
        1 year ago

        It’s a good point - it’s very much along the lines of the Internet founding principles: if a node goes down it can be inconvenient but the larger network is flexible and adapts.

  • addie@feddit.uk
    6·
    1 year ago

    Ah, thanks guys - a sad day, but like you say, needs to be done. We help in any way, or just keep our eyes open in the channel?