AN OPEN POST TO MASTO ADMINS (boost for reach pls):
Yesterday a sizable instance (dice.camp, a TTRPG community, where I have - or HAD - many mutuals) defederated with mastodon.social (cut ties). That server then reversed that decision but the damage was done: follows had been deleted. I lost my friends there.
ADMINS: PLEASE... we (USERS) are all working hard to establish mastodon as a viable social network. This type of action fundamentally damages that effort. Even reversed, it's damaging.
@ethanschoonover Regardless of the reasons for federating / defederating, dumping the follows list when a defederation occurs is deleting user data without warning and therefore fails Software Engineering 101.
@mtomczak it is definitely a software and admin UI issue in part. my understanding is that, in part as a result of this event, mastodon devs are considering ways that they can improve the tooling around giving instance users a heads up warning of pending defederations and possibly making the "loses all following connections" consequence a more granular option.