Mike Masnick ✅Here's a first: did a Google search on something and one of my own Mastodon posts came up as a result.
Beginning to think that the cultural norm here of not allowing search isn't going to last all that much longer.
Andrew@mmasnick let's hope so
ASP ¯\_(ツ)_/¯People like @atomicpoet have predicted this would happen for quite some time.
Also, many journalists like @steventdennis have stated on multiple occasional that the lack of proper search makes Mastodon a less attractive platform for them.
I guess one way or the other, search functionality will come to Mastodon
@mmasnick @atomicpoet @steventdennis
And by the way, I tip my hat to journalists like YOU, @steventdennis or @w7voa. They are among the view who really retained an active presence on here. 👍
Smalls@mmasnick Instance admins can opt their users out of search engine indexing, but individual users can opt-out themselves by going to settings on the website and going under Preferences -> Other.
How well that works? Uhhhh… Good question? 😅
Anders Puck Nielsen
Josh@anderspuck @smalls @mmasnick Sure but most people probably aren't victims of pile ons, or getting threads filled with trolls the moment they talk about e.g. their race, sexuality, gender etc. Not saying all search is bad but saying most people would be happy with it doesn't really address the reason that some people aren't, and doesn't automatically make it ok.
PJ "Vote Green" Coffey@anderspuck @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick
Hmm... so the next cis white man will say
"Oh it's no problem, the people who don't want to be searched can go to a server where that isn't true."
And be blithefully unaware that they've reinvented the ghetto.
Plus this will make fascist/TERF lives easier for stochastic and e warfare by grouping their targets.
Tell me I'm wrong.
@Homebrewandhacking @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick Not sure I get your point. A user can turn off indexing for themselves regardless what server they are on.
@anderspuck @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick
As per this thread when an opt in user talks to an opt out user the opt out user is automatically indexed as part of the reply.
Is that correct or incorrect?
@Homebrewandhacking @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick The post is not indexed by the search engine, but it would be visible if someone finds the parent post.
@anderspuck @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick
So, if someone replied to say a trans person and used the word trans, that would show up?
If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, a lot of the filter bypassing practices like using El*n instead of Elon are due to plain text searches by cultists.
I feel that would be an obvious problem because even an accidental usage could expose someone to a pile on.
@Homebrewandhacking @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick I can see how that will be a problem. Not sure what the solution is, though. Isn't this already the case if a user responds to something on another instance in the Fediverse where things are searchable?
Liz Ellis She/Her🌳@Homebrewandhacking @anderspuck @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick
It could also work the other way? We can root out TERFs/Racists etc by searching their posts, which also actually makes it easier to report them and get their instances defederated if they don't boot them. The search function on twitter seemed to be used equally and as I recall, it was Black Mastodonians who were arguing that lack of a search filter meant that vetting wasn't possible.
It could also work the other way? We can root out TERFs/Racists etc by searching their posts, which also actually makes it easier to report them and get their instances defederated if they don't boot them. The search function on twitter seemed to be used equally and as I recall, it was Black Mastodonians who were arguing that lack of a search filter meant that vetting wasn't possible.
@LizEllisPhD Fair point!
@LizEllisPhD @anderspuck @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick
Open racists and TERFs are proactively moderated out due to defed policies.
Ones with an ounce of subtlety won't be picked up by plain text searches. The ones they target will be.
You'll have to be a lot more specific about what your last sentence means. There's several possible issues I know of.
@Homebrewandhacking @anderspuck @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick
If I could, I'd do a search, but essentially I saw posts from BIPOC saying the lack of a search function was an issue, because in reporting, you can't demonstrate a pattern. By only allowing search using #, people don't actually have to be particularly subtle. They can just write sex not gender or whatever.
I get what you're saying & I understand why it's this way, I'm just saying a search function isn't necessarily bad, more neutral.
@LizEllisPhD @anderspuck @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick
Ah, I _think_ that sounds like @futurebird on QT. Could be wrong!
Keeping receipts via screenshot is one thing but actually searching a user profile for phrases and dogwhistles is harder. Which in turn makes it harder to demonstrate the more subtle bigots or search one's own profile for evidence of those bigots prodding at you. See: #microaggresion
TransitBiker@mmasnick the flagship instance may be handled differently.
Eric Redegeld💻🏎️☀️🙋💖@mmasnick there is an difference i think between "allowed" by user or "pushed" by algoritme
Doctor Biobrain@mmasnick I don't understand why people oppose having Mastodon indexed or added to searches or whatever.
One of the reasons I post here is to hype news sites and Youtubers I like because I think they deserve a wider audience. I think it'd be nice if they got boosted in algorithms outside of Mastodon. But maybe there's something I'm missing.
@biobrain it's a cultural norm. the general reasoning, as i understand it, was that this community is premised more on consent and permission, and search is done without consent... and there are worries that it then leads to brigading and attacks. i'm not sure if that really holds up though.
Aulia Masna@mmasnick @biobrain heads up, this post shows up when I search for YouTube from my account. I’m trialing Akkoma and it seems to index Mastodon posts that the instance is aware of because most of the results are from accounts I don’t follow.
Laurens Hof@[email protected] @mmasnick @biobrain Quite a few of the fediverse microblogging servers that are not mastodon have full search enabled. Akkoma, Pleroma and CalcKey do, not sure on Friendica, and I thought that Hubzilla also does not.
It makes the entire conversation about not having search on the fediverse kind of bewildering, since search is openly available, just not on Mastodon.
Part of the problem with everyone's myopic focus on Mastodon, I guess.
It makes the entire conversation about not having search on the fediverse kind of bewildering, since search is openly available, just not on Mastodon.
Part of the problem with everyone's myopic focus on Mastodon, I guess.
Kinetix
author_is_ShrikeTron🔠💉x5@ShrikeTron @biobrain i agree with you
Zee@mmasnick the corporate collar cinches another notch 😒
Joé McKen@mmasnick Let’s hope so. I think a good solution for the targeted-harassment problem is controllable post/account visibility, not opposing the implementation of a fundamental feature.
Andrew F@mmasnick Regardless of the merits of search, it'll be interesting to see what sort of defensive measures get built.
Some of this will just be using robots.txt to block indexing. But I hope there's also exploration of stuff like "only show mentions from these instances" or "rate limit replies / boosts".
william.maggos
vagabondYep there are meany subcultures, that have the unfortunate idea that they are the ONLY subculture and everything they think is the big story of #fedivers culture. This is kinda bad behaver and obviously not true.
What we do have in common here is #4opens and a history of openweb netticate.
The rest is a point of view, valid for its group, but not the "big" story.
Good if #mainstreaming people had some understanding about this healthy, but messey #open culture.
Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦@mmasnick And so "we" relinquish control to the world's largest advertising platform and data hoarder, because a few people could not see the woods for the trees.
Martin Vermeer FCD@osma what control is lost in this scenario?
wb x64@mmasnick it's reeeaaallllyyy hard to keep crawlers away. They're very clever. (Source: have an app that tries to ban crawlers)
me@mmasnick
Yep, Google Alerts alerted me as well.
https://t.joeldebruijn.nl/notice/ATIZgBuDIMwnBqCFX6
Yep, Google Alerts alerted me as well.
https://t.joeldebruijn.nl/notice/ATIZgBuDIMwnBqCFX6
Joël de Bruijn (@[email protected])
🤔 I know adding universal search to the Fediverse is a hot topic. 🙈 Meanwhile my Google Alert gave a Mastodon alert for the first time so one way or another we will be crawled, indexed and retriev...
Mikko Alasaarela@mmasnick Finally!! Without world class discovery and search, Mastodon will not succeed. With search, this is the future.
newsorpigalI don't get why people are against search.
Anything public on the internet will be indexed by someone. Better us than Google.
Frank Bennett 🇯🇵@mmasnick It's a sensitivity that ``norobots.txt`` was invented for. I've heard that the commercial behemoths now blithely ignore it, but with federation it could be made to stick, at least within the Fediverse transactional sphere.
Chris Trottier@mmasnick I’ve been telling people for awhile that Google doesn’t care about community norms regarding Mastodon search.
It’s too bad these “norms” will likely result in Google monopolizing Fediverse search.
Håkon O.@mmasnick it is open on the internet and will be indexed by search engines. Try this one in google "site:mastodon.social mmasnick".
Daniel Jonsson@mmasnick Is there a cultural norm of no allowed search here?
Doctor Memory@mmasnick gooogle basically already is fediverse search: googling “foo site:mastodon.social” works for nearly all values of foo because it’s vanishingly unlikely that any given post hasn’t been federated to the largest site in the graph.
iamBullivant@mmasnick Yeap. Google (and presumably the other search engines) is indexing Mastodon.
Steffen Christensen@mmasnick Fantastic news!
That's literally the best thing that I've heard all month!
That's literally the best thing that I've heard all month!
Stefan Scholl@mmasnick For 2 to 3 years, I was searching for an alternative to a software that stopped working after Apple bought it.
Every time I googled for it, I found my own Reddit post.
And even the Wikipedia page of the defunct software links to the Reddit post.
msgbi Markus Sagebiel
Robert Thau@mmasnick Unfortunately, you could read things the other way -- that people who insist that good search would somehow cripple Mastodon long after Google started providing it, will keep complaining until the sun swallows the Earth, regardless of whatever other evidence will come along in the meantime, and that devs who've let themselves get shouted down don't have much reason to change either.
I hope I'm wrong...
Shoq 🌿@mmasnick Yes, but what was the latency? Anecdotally, it seems to take about 40 minutes to an hour to be indexed. But they can flip a toggle any time they wish. and presto, real-time search. And then, as some of us warned, the whole "do we or don't we do fedisearch will be moot." I think we're just about there.
Gary McGraw@mmasnick is it really a cultural norm stopping that? Ridonkulous.
Blake C. Stacey@mmasnick Hooray! You're feeding the ShatGPT behemoth once again!
... Seriously, the question of "is it good to have your fedi posts indexed by a search engine?" can't be separated from "what the fuck is going on with search engines nowadays?!".
Nathan A. Stine@mmasnick each instance will need to determine if they want posts indexed or not with warnings that posts across instances might be indexed.
@pineywoozle ‘s #3WordNote@mmasnick That’s happened to me repeatedly, to the point that if I vaguely remember a post that someone wrote, I just Google it instead of trying to see whether or not they used an appropriate #