Tim BrayDec 28, 2022

Thinking about how to enable full-text searching of a useful subset of Fediverse posts in a way that is controlled by post authors and has humane unsurprising defaults.

The current yes/no binary toggle under Settings/Other (that most people have never seen) probably isn't going to do the job.

The problem needs a long-form write-up (coming), and is controversial, but I’m pretty sure won’t go away, so the community should get in front of it.

Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Dec 28, 2022
@timbray honestly, between the global search engine opt-out and the per-post visibility settings, all the pieces for user controlled search are already in place.
Show threadTim BrayDec 28, 2022
@fraying I don't think so? I'd like options to include no-search/hashtag-only/full-text, and also time-limits.
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Dec 28, 2022

@timbray Fair. No search exists (the global opt out) hashtag only is what we have now (so would be a good default), and time limits can be had by setting the posts to auto-delete.

Anyway, I agree with you that search should be more useful, and if masto doesn’t include it the outside crawlers will.

Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Dec 28, 2022
@timbray (I was the designer for Technorati back in the day, if you remember that beautiful moment before Google started indexing blogs, so I’ve seen firsthand how search can help build community.)
Show threadMo Morgan
@fraying @timbray Goodness me I'd not thought about Technorati for ages
Dec 28, 2022 at 7:43pmWeb