A few weeks back I stepped down as grandaddy of Famichiki.jp, handing over the reins to the more than capable admin and moderator team. I explained my reasoning here, but what I forgot to mention is that I’m also moving away from the instance itself.
I’m a big fan of self-hosting software, and so self-hosting my own Mastodon instance was the next logical step. After all, the Fediverse and specifically Mastodon allows everyone to easily move instances. I love the Famichiki community, but for me what unites people online is more than just a domain name. What unites us is our values and our struggles. A different domain name is not going to change this. Chikicon last week was visited by people from other parts of the Fediverse, and we have had some people who came from Bluesky.
Yes, the local timeline is filled with wonderful toots but I can still see those.
The only difference for anyone but myself is the fact that my domain now says social.brian.jp instead of famichiki.jp.
The big difference for myself is that I reclaim control of my own data.
The uptime of my instance is mine, and my responsibility only.
If it’s offline, it’s my responsibility.
If it’s slow, it’s my responsibility.
If it gets hacked, it’s my responsibility.
And the only person who will be inconvenienced, is me.
To some, that might sound like a burden. To me, it’s exactly the kind of autonomy I want in life.
Moving to my own one-person instance is hopefully further evidence that community goes beyond a domain name or server. And isn’t that the whole point of the fediverse?