Mastodawn

Brian Krohne Jul 29, 2023

I've been pondering the posts by @kissane and @siderea about 'not finding your people' #OnHere and am wondering if sentiments toward fediverse-wide #FullTextSearch have shifted at all. I know this has been implemented several times, and then been graciously shut down by developers who listened to community feedback.
#Mastodon #Fulltext #Search

From US - want opt-out fulltext search

37.3%

From US - DO NOT want opt-out fulltext search

13.6%

From Europe - want opt-out fulltext search

33.1%

From Europe - DO NOT want opt-out fulltext search

16.1%

Poll ended at Aug 5, 2023 at 2:15pm.

Vyr Cossont 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

@siderea @kissane @krohne what the hell's wrong with opt-*in* full-text search

Brian Krohne Jul 29, 2023

I think opt-in search is great. I have signed up for @buercher's #TootFinder, but few people have. What if something like that was the default search in the UI, and people were encouraged opt-in when they signed up?

Vyr Cossont 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Jul 29, 2023

@krohne enshrining some third-party rando in the signup flow is not the way to do this.

the way to do this is to have a standard way to explicitly mark posts as searchable, the same way that Mastodon and several other Fedi servers already have a `discoverable` flag that explicitly marks accounts as searchable. that way, *any* search engine has a way of knowing what people have volunteered for.

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/23808 unfortunately, the effort to patch this into Mastodon has stalled out.

Add setting to explicitly consent to full-text search indexing of public posts by ClearlyClaire · Pull Request #23808 · mastodon/mastodon

NOTE: This PR does not implement the search functionality itself, just a framework to express explicit consent for posts to be indexed Mastodon has historically refused to provide full-text search ...

GitHub

Brian Krohne Jul 29, 2023

A per-toot search opt is really interesting. I think that could work well with setting your search preferences during the on-boarding process (e.g. by default my toots should be [ ] Searchable [ ] Not Searchable)

Erin Kissane Jul 29, 2023

@krohne This is 100% my preferred implementation fwiw. Set an account default and have per-post controls. Onboarding needs a really nice visual wizardy walkthrough as well, god help us.

@kissane @krohne the onboarding for #FireFish is so much better - really much more user friendly.

Vyr Cossont 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Jul 29, 2023

@krohne if we don't build something like this, "is this post set to public visibility" is the only intent signal to work with, and searching all public posts surprises Mastodon users.

(and only Mastodon users. "public = searchable" is the rule for full-text search implementations on most other Fedi servers that have it, except for GotoSocial.)

Vyr Cossont 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Jul 29, 2023

@krohne UX-wise, agreed that there should be an opt-in button in the signup flow. you should be able to switch this on easily. but it should never be switched on for you.

Siderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis Aug 3, 2023

@vyr
> the way to do this is to have a standard way to explicitly mark posts as searchable

Man, the problem I have with this is I don't want to mark my posts either universally searchable or not universally searchable. I want to be able to pick and choose which search engines I allow to index my content!

As a side note, part of why I would like to have that option is that I can imagine a little social movement where people in the Fediverse decide to make a point of not letting Google Search index their posts, gravitating some other search engine, thereby giving that search engine a commercial advantage over Google Search, at least for searching the Fediverse.

Vyr Cossont 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Aug 3, 2023

@siderea @krohne hi, not a man

Siderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis Aug 3, 2023

@vyr Oh, sorry, I wasn't aiming that at you, I meant in the other rhetorical sense of "oh man".

Vyr Cossont 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Aug 3, 2023

@siderea @krohne yeah well don't get any of your rhetoric on my gender, thanks, i just got it the way i like it 😝

anyway, controlling how posts get exposed to web scrapers like Google is a related but different issue. specifically, you first have to somehow have enough leverage with Google to get them to agree to whatever scheme you propose, because they don't care about ActivityPub as such. they only see web pages, and those web pages are rendered by a dozen kinds of Fediverse server, and right now, even clicking the "hide me from search engines box" doesn't work 100% on your local instance, let alone once your posts leave it.

Vyr Cossont 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Aug 3, 2023

@krohne @siderea meanwhile, the most commonly deployed opt-in scheme across the Fediverse right now is "if you post with public visibility, you are opting into everything", and if nobody comes up with anything better, that's going to crystallize.

Matthias Bürcher Jul 29, 2023

@krohne An instance using this approach on sign up would probably instance opt-in.

Matt Jul 29, 2023

@vyr @krohne The thing is, I'd gather that most people that the "full text search" arguments are trying to attract are the type of people who will never configure an option, so opt-out makes a lot more sense for the usability of the feature.

Opt-in and opt-out are very, very different kettles of fish, and opt-out is always more effective for the usability of a feature that relies on other people having it activated.

Another approach would be asking people during onboarding if they want their posts indexed (or removed from the index), but even then the default is going to matter as many people skip this sort of stuff as they just want to post.

Defaults will always be what is used by 90%+ of people - which is why there's always so much pressure on Mastodon and not other platforms to implement features. A lot of other platforms have these features, but most people will only experience Mastodon default.

Vyr Cossont 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Jul 29, 2023

@mattswift @krohne there's always the possibility of an "opt-either" onboarding UX. consider the following:

"i want to be visible" on the left half of the screen vs. "i want to be quiet" on the right. one click defaults.

left one turns on discoverable and searchable flags, sets your default visibility to public, and disables the opt-out for web crawlers.

right one leaves the flags off, sets your default visibility to unlisted, tells web crawlers to ignore you, hides your social graph, and requires follow request approval.

anyone who wants further customization can go digging for it.

Matt Jul 29, 2023

@vyr @krohne This is a pretty good idea, people are most likely going to follow patterns in all their options, so a couple set of "defaults" makes a lot of sense!