Why do the instances keep going down? It makes me think that this is not a reliable social network, but the alternatives are not as good.
Why do the instances keep going down? It makes me think that this is not a reliable social network, but the alternatives are not as good.
That’s entirely up to you, it can be the same username if you want. Speaking as an instance admin, there is no problem with users creating multiple accounts across instances, even if they’re the same username.
Spam would be creating as many usernames as you can on any given instance (e.g. trying to register 100 users on lemmy.world because reasons) - there’s obviously a problem with that. Creating you@instance1, you@instance2 and you@instanceN is perfectly fine.
I thought that you had to have the same username to identify yourself.
There are no requirements, and they wouldn’t be enforceable even if somebody tried. The admin of instance1 has no way of knowing that you already have an account on instance2. Your identifiable details (IP address, e-mail address) are private to the instance that you sign up with and it would be a violation of privacy (and inherently scummy) for those to be shared between instances - they’re not.
You can be anonymous on the fediverse, just like the Internet in general used to be before Facebook.
I choose not to be. I like to have a clear breadcrumb trail for myself and not confuse people.
I get that, I’ve been “SoNick” or some variation of it for a few decades now. However, a friend of mine uses different - but thematically similar - usernames for different services, when I asked her about it she explained that as a girl on the internet she has attracted more than a few stalkers; changing up the username makes it harder for them to find her on different services.
That makes sense then.
Not at all. You don’t have to identify as yourself on every instance you have an account. It’s literally a different account. You can keep a backup of all your subscriptions/follows/etc from one to the other or you can treat them as two entirely different identities. Just don’t have them generate a lot of pointless traffic between each other (like arguing with yourself on a post or something).
Wouldn’t it be easier to be the same person across all of the communities and instances rather than split your personality?
Depends on the person. The point is, it’s entirely up to you. And keep in mind you’re not guaranteed to get the same name on every instance you create an account.
I would add a sequential number like 0 or 1.
Ok? I honestly can’t tell if you get the point yet or not though.
I do, but I disagree with the premise.
What premise? It’s not a philosophy. It’s an outright technical observation. You can do whatever you want. I didn’t say you have to like it. What is there to disagree with? You can say the idea isn’t for you, but it’s still correct.
It would be easier but would remove anonymity and allow user tracking.
In the Fediverse it isn’t possible to reserve your username. I could host a server and get something like
favrion@lemmy.accountso it’s unreasonable to expect that users keep the same username across instances. Reddit is more anonymous than Facebook. The Fediverse is more anonymous than Reddit.But I do.
Then you should drop that assumption/expectation.