Mastodawn

➴➴➴Æ🜔Ɲ.Ƈꭚ⍴𝔥єɼ👩🏻‍💻May 18, 2025

Okay, but we can also #federate this now with the #fediverse. Like, #ActivityPub can handle search queries just fine.

So, just running on microcomputers, everyone can put on their own index whatever they want.

A person can _easily_ index 50,000 pages on a rapsberry pi.

A #FediSearch can broadcast any query to known peers. Each peer returns top-k results. The originating node can then aggregate and rank.

So @alice queries their FediSearch, it searches its own index and queries subscribed peers, those peers do the same thing. Nodes can choose who they trust, cache, etc.

The number of indexes pages will be something along the lines of `pages_per_nod * log(number_nodes)`. So a thousand nodes may only cover a million pages, but if the trust network is good, those are probably the most important million pages.

Also, I would venture that you'd have some nodes specializing in having a lot of pages: tens of millions, others just for stuff they like, others specifically for non-commercial interests. Selecting who you federate your search with really affects the ranking.

#FediSearch #ActivityPub #FederatedSearch #Fediverse #RaspberryPi #SearchEngine #DecentralizedWeb #SelfHosting

Mott Nov 19, 2024

searching U.S. government documents for information about "long COVID treatment"

Use MetaLib, a federated search engine that searches many databases at once. It is available at: https://metalib.gpo.gov

#longCOVID #COVID
#MetaLib #searchEngine #federatedSearch

MetaLib®

sleepfreeparent Feb 4, 2024

Uh, hey all, I'm thinking with Google along with everything else going to shit, isn't it time we had #FederatedSearch?

And no, I don't mean searching #mastodon.

I mean a bunch of #community run #search servers, each of which has a focus or maybe a specialism, and when you search you get direct results from the server you're interacting with plus relayed results from other servers. And no fucking ads.

Maybe I'll get a barrage of replies telling me why this is an obviously bad idea that's been discarded before, but I'm hopeful there are folks who can "do better than Google, but just for recipes" or just for anime, or for something else. If server load gets too high others can host clones/mirrors of the more popular nodes. And we could all chip away at Google's dominance in area after area, until all that's left is just the corporate bullshit nobody here has time for.

What say you?

hauschke Aug 31, 2023

I have to admit that I did not read the specifics about the then announced #mastosearch. Now that the #search feature is here, I am deeply disappointed, because of the fact that it's a local search feature. In fact, I think this could be even harmful for the development of a federated social network. The big instances will have one, and this could drive users to go there. #MatthewEffect, here we come.

I want opt-in #federatedSearch, I want to be able to look beyond my bubble.

Beth Pariseau Feb 14, 2023

#Splunk nemesis #cribl begins new forays onto the turf of incumbent vendors with federated #search and big roadmap plans. @clintsharp #observability #federatedsearch #datalake #AI #cybersecurity
https://bit.ly/3YV1JbX

Cribl Search marks fresh observability sortie for upstart

The Splunk nemesis begins new forays onto the turf of incumbent vendors with federated search that doesn't require data migration or indexing -- and big roadmap plans.

TechTarget

Show thread

Michael Kuhn Feb 4, 2023

@hauschke @kuf I totally agree on the Mastodon #federatedsearch part. I'm on FediScience.org, signed up with my professional identity and ORCID, and I really want our toots to show up e.g. on #bioRxiv. Both to show that Mastodon is a viable alternative for Science Twitter, and to find interesting people and discussions.

Not every Mastodon instance needs to support search, but at least the "professional" ones should (with opt-out for users, of course).

@FrankSonntag, what do you think?

hauschke Feb 2, 2023

This is the end of #altmetrics as we know it: #Twitter ends free API access.

Countless hours of development work and creativity with data, apps, visualizations, conference walls, and a lot more: Gone.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/01/twitter-to-end-free-access-to-its-api/

Now, if the Fediverse would be a tiny bit more open to #federatedsearch approaches, this would be a historical opportunity to direct the attention of all these developers, artists etc to Mastodon & Co.