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Still trying to understand the federation model of identity around here. Is it expected to have multiple accounts on different servers, so "local" messages for that community are discoverable? Or is it possible to follow a server, rather than individuals?

Is my identity portable in any way? I can "migrate" to another server, but it doesn't seem to cryptographically authenticate to make it transparent to followers (or follows that require acceptance).

@dagon
I think custom is to have a main account, and a backup account(?). It's not expected that you are discoverable that way, you're discovered by interaction with other users, and discover other users by seeing them interact on your timeline. AFAIK it's not possible to follow a server.

Yeah, no cryptographic authentication in the case of migration.

@niplav
Thanks!

In what sense is a backup account an actual backup (that is, what outages or losses does it let you recover from)? Does one normally mirror all follows between the main and the backup account? Tell private correspondents to use the backup if the primary fails?

In other words, what's the benefit of having a backup in advance of my primary server crashing or otherwise losing access, vs just creating a new account after it's needed?

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