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   Lohan Gunaweera (lohang@social.alochana.net)'s status on Wednesday, 24-May-2023 16:05:41 JST Lohan Gunaweera

   in reply to

   • Lohan Gunaweera
   • Bob Mottram :debian:
   • hosh

   @lohang Well, as you can see, I haven't "discontinued" the instance. The overall experience with #Epicyon has been too good to discontinue it abruptly. Besides, those who defederate me will do it again even if I start using something else.
   
   I've been trying out various things privately, seeking solutions. It did not occur to me to go and ask the matrix room: #epicyon:matrix.libreserver.org until today! It turns out that Epicyon does support full text search. I was just told that using an ' (apostrophe) right before the search string indicates a full text search of your own posts. Thanks @bob and @hosh for clarifying this!
   
   Full text search is a hidden gem or a not-so-well-documented feature in Epicyon. For example, if I want to find my posts that mention WordPress, I should enter 'WordPress in the search box. If I wish to find out how many times I have talked about "colours and composition", I should enter 'colours and composition.
   
   This significantly resolves the problem 2) described in the previous post.

   • Embed this notice
     Lohan Gunaweera (lohang@social.alochana.net)'s status on Wednesday, 24-May-2023 16:05:42 JST Lohan Gunaweera

     I have decided to discontinue this instance. Because ...
     
     1) I have been defederated by several large fediverse instances; no reasons were given; there is no way to investigate into it without the active support of those who run those sites. Resolving issues with a single-user instance is - obviously - unlikely to be among their priorities. There may be incompatibilities between the software used by my site and those who don't federate with me. I don't have the knowledge or energy to fix this side of things.
     
     As a result of this, I am no longer able to interact with people I like. This is the primary reason for shutting down the instance.
     
     2) I have realized that I enjoy going through my past interactions, posts and threads. I sometimes like to revive old topics. #Epicyon is not designed with that kind of use in mind. I miss being able to search. As I said on Mastodon, (https://mastodon.social/@lohang/110209507993705568 ) I am looking for an alternative that has better support for text search. Depending on the solution I find, I might start a new, single-user instance in the coming weeks/months. I am not very motivated because of the problem 1) described above.
     
     3) My older DMs have disappeared without a trace. I don't know what happened there. I assume this is how #Epicyon is designed. It functions like something similar to IRC, without logs. DMs are not a preferred channel, but several friends I follow here are heavy users of DMs. I am now in an awkward situation with all the direct messages at my end are gone.
     
     ...