描述
The WELL (the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link) has this principle: you own your own words. I think that principle is a fine one, and I love it when my tools avoid lock-in by making it easy for me to walk away with my own data. I would love to be able to download the things I've said and the attachments I've uploaded in my Zulip realms, without having to ask an administrator to tarball them up for me. That way:
- If I need to leave a community, or if I'm worried a community is about to shut down, I don't leave behind all my work and lose access to it.
- I can, at my own leisure, look through what I've said, analyze it, and reuse it more easily in blog posts or emails or book chapters.
So I'd like to be able to go someplace in my settings and click a button to request a tarball of my contributions to the realm. I'd be fine with it working the way it works for Twitter, where you click a button to request it, and then you get an email when it's ready, with a link to download it. And the link would expire, say, a week after the email's sent.
The packaged-up "my stuff" export would include:
- my private messages, including metadata, and my public messages, including metadata, in a giant JSON file
- my file uploads/attachments
- my avatar
- API keys/settings for bots/integrations in my settings
Edit: #21439 has some technical notes.