Hello everyone,

I’m sad to announce that I’ve come to the decision that it would be best to archive this instance given the overhead in administration and moderation that would be required to run it correctly.

Please note that this announcement ONLY impacts yiffit.net and that I have no intention of terminating packmates.org at all.

There is several reasons for this decision but most of them are based on my inability to run the instance with the quality and care that I envisioned. Due to the nature of Lemmy, the necessary moderation effort, media storage costs and admin effort are considerably higher than for a Mastodon instance, for example. It’s not a matter of donations, which many of you have generously offered over the lifespan of the instance.

What is meant by termination and archival?

Some time after January 3rd 2025, fulfilling my promise of giving at least 3 months notice, the following will happen:

  • Yiffit will stop federating, all user sessions will be revoked and logins will be disabled.
  • The site will effectively become a read-only version, giving access only to local communities. NSFW communities will be accessible publicly without need for an account although equipped with an age disclaimer and anything else necessary to display adult content.
  • Remote communities and posts will no longer be accessible, thus remote instances need not worry that we would somehow cache any content which they would have wanted deleted if federation had been enabled.
  • Local comments and posts from remote users will be preserved.
  • There will be a way to receive and process personal account / data deletion requests for yiffit.net users or remote users who have submitted a comment or post.
  • I will attempt to find a way to have the site officially archived in the Internet Archive or in any similar way.
  • I will continue paying for the domain and hosting for an indeterminate period of time, especially since the storage costs of local content as opposed to remote content are negligible.

Technically there is a chance that we could come back at some point since I’ll make sure to save the server’s federation authentication keys as well as all local content, but I don’t want users to count on it.

If we were to come back it would probably be in a form other than a Lemmy instance or anything else that I currently am aware exists out there.

If you want to post a farewell message, please feel free to send a comment below since everything will be archived and visible. Before archiving the instance, around New Year’s Eve I’ll create the final farewell message thread. Both this thread and the final farewell message thread will be pinned in the home page when the site is archived.

Thank you everyone for everything. I’m incredibly humbled by all the interest and users we’ve received over time and especially all the regular users who’ve kept posting constantly despite the downturn in activity.

  • KovukonoEnglish
    9·
    4 months ago

    Coming from pawb.social, we’re going to miss you guys. It’s been great having you as a sister site, and I wish you weren’t going away, though I understand why. You and the people here have definitely made my time better.

  • Veloxization@yiffit.netEnglish
    6·
    4 months ago

    Thank you for keeping this instance running for as long as you did. I shall start looking for a new home. c:

    See you around on Packmates and wherever else we may interact! c:

  • Eccitaze@yiffit.netEnglish
    6·
    18 days ago

    I’d say “So long, and thanks for all the fish,” but I’m not a dolphin or an otter, so…

    Bye, y’all.

  • FoxfireEnglish
    6·
    20 days ago

    Was anticipating the New Years Eve thread, but as I don’t see it I’ll leave a little message here. Farewell Yiffit, it’s been a pleasure. While it sucks to lose a furry instance, I thank you for the time you gave for the cause of both community and software freedom. Self hosting something like this is often a demanding and thankless task, and because of your efforts, many critters had a home here. When dealing with many small, independent nodes, things don’t usually last forever. The great thing about those many nodes though is we’re still here, and I know I’ve seen some residents already make their next stop to our little node at pawb.social! Pawb isn’t my first instance, and I’m sure it won’t be my last if I use Lemmy for long enough, but I can’t thank all of you enough for what you selflessly bring to the table every day that you keep doing it.

    Every server host, every comment, every piece of artwork, we’re all in this together to make our communities a little better. To make things feel a little more like home. Sometimes we run out of steam—and that’s okay—we still made memories along the way.

  • lucario_owo@yiffit.netEnglish
    5·
    20 days ago

    I suppose the instance is coming to an end. Thank you for hosting it, it opened for me a whole new world, which is the fediverse. I do not regret the time I spent here and I’m glad I took part in such a warm and welcoming community. I appreciate the effort you put into it and it’s sad to see it go away. Farewell yiffit.

  • l_b_i@yiffit.netEnglish
    5·
    4 months ago

    What to write here? I really don’t know.

    I have worried that one day I would go to yiffit and it would just be gone, so thank you for the heads up.

    After all my time lurking this is the first place on the internet I tried to be active. Its worked out well for me and has helped more than you will ever know. I’ve generally felt home here and have enjoyed our little community. This feels a little like loosing a friend. I’ll be around some other places now, but it just won’t be the same.

    Thank you for everything you’ve done. I’ll definitely miss yiffit and its users when its gone.

  • Jimbo@yiffit.netEnglish
    5·
    4 months ago

    Thanks for your time and effort on making this instance what it is, I’ve had a great time with everyone here. Been thinking of commemorating this instance on my next account, maybe: “Jimbo of yiffit.net@pawb.social” for example?

  • Forester@yiffit.netEnglish
    4·
    4 months ago

    Thank you for all of your time and effort.

    I still don’t know much about federation. Can somebody please confirm that I need to make an entire new user account now on a new instance?

    • l_b_i@yiffit.netEnglish
      5·
      4 months ago

      Yes. When yiffit becomes read only, you will no longer be able to log into your account. There are some tools to transfer some preferences/settings to a new account, but messages, comment history, post history… will not transfer.

  • SoupBrick@yiffit.netEnglish
    4·
    4 months ago

    It was a pleasure, see y’all around the Fediverse!

    Thanks for all of your hard work, Wander!

  • Blanco8736English
    4·
    3 months ago

    Thank you for all the effort and initiative that you put on Yiffit! I have not been very talkative, but it was a pleasure to follow its communities.

    I hope that the community will go on living on pawb.social and other Lemmy instances!

  • arkthos@yiffit.netEnglish
    4·
    3 months ago

    So long, and thanks for all the fish! Well, and the non-fish too. More is needed than just fish twinks for a well-rounded diet.