I had shared an earlier version of this last week, and a draft of the updates a few days ago. Thanks to everybody for the feedback!
Here’s the key points:
- Don’t tell people “it’s easy”
- Improve the “getting-started experience”
- Keep scalability and sustainability in mind
- Prioritize accessibility
- Get ready for trolls, hate speech, harassment, spam, porn, and disinformation
- Invest in moderation tools
- Experiment to find what approaches are a good fit for the current state of the software
- Values matter
- This is a great opportunity – and it won’t be the last great opportunity
I’d say it depends on why the individual is leaving those instances. Take Twitter for example. Many left due to the power held by one person. They may not be adverse to joining something like that again. Federation would be a selling point in that regard. Sure it won’t matter to many, but it is still important.