Since my latest database backup is unfortunately not very recent, and because there is still hope that the severs will come back up, I am waiting and hoping that I regain access to the data.

This won’t help with password changes and new accounts and the like, but because Fediverse hosts federate data, I wonder if it is possible, with the help of a trusted other instance or two, to reconstruct much data from federated data that has moved to other hosts, to viably recover from there.

If technically possible to make a tool that could viably recover from federated data, it might help not just in this instance, but in the event of future instance losses, which I’m sure will happen.

As someone once put it:

I also noticed that my harddisk on “linux.cs.helsinki.fi” (which is where I keep the primary development sources) seems to be going, so keep your fingers crossed. I thought I’d better upload what I have now, rather than notice that I lost everything when I get back to work on Monday…

(Only wimps use tape backup: real men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;)

—Linus Torvalds, 1996, Linux Kernel Mailing List