Mastodawn

Debbie Goldsmith 🏳️‍⚧️♾️🇺🇦

Once again I see people talking about how Mastodon needs quote posts and full text search “right now" but is "opposed." Both features are on the road map (https://joinmastodon.org/roadmap) at the highest priority.

The actual problem is resources (money and/or qualified volunteers), which no one seems to talk about. People talk about Mastodon like it's equivalent to companies with billions in VC money, like the only barrier to implementing features is the desire to do so. The barrier is staffing.

Public Roadmap

Learn what we are working on in Mastodon

Dan Shick Aug 5, 2023

@dgoldsmith perhaps worth noting that other fediverse software already has quote-posts and text search.

Debbie Goldsmith 🏳️‍⚧️♾️🇺🇦Aug 5, 2023

@datn None of them implement the features with user protections. They're just rendering an embedded post link as a quote post.

Here is what's wanted to build it into Mastodon:
1. Required: Notify the original poster that they've been QP’d (as with mentions). This doesn't happen with current implementations, and requires changes to ActivityPub.
2. Desired: Allow people to block QP'ing of individual posts or all posts (already desired for replies). Also not available in current implementations.

Debbie Goldsmith 🏳️‍⚧️♾️🇺🇦Aug 5, 2023

@datn Similarly people need to be able to opt out of their posts being searchable.

Dan Shick Aug 5, 2023

@dgoldsmith thanks, I’m aware of the features we desire on top of quote-posts. I’m 100% in agreement that those features should be built. I’m just pointing out that the basic features exist outside of Mastodon.

https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/5624/fep-5624.md

https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/e232/fep-e232.md

fep

Fediverse Enhancement Proposals

Codeberg.org

Rainer Müller Aug 5, 2023

@dgoldsmith @datn But what would be the point of trying to control quoting when others could still simply use a link to a post to circumvent both 1. & 2.? Being able to link to posts with an URL is a good thing and I don't think we should give that up.

Dan Shick Aug 6, 2023

@raimue @dgoldsmith I don’t think any of the three of us can nor wants to rehash this already thoroughly discussed topic. I sure can’t and don’t. I’m confident there’s a way to implement all of this in a way that satisfies everyone. check the FEPs –

derSammler Aug 7, 2023

@dgoldsmith @datn I'd say 2. should also be required, not just desired. Otherwise, people would no longer be in control of their own posts or the discussion(s) around. The first thing I will do when that feature ever comes to Mastodon is to disallow quoting for any of my posts. I just don't want that.

Dan Shick Aug 7, 2023

@derSammler @dgoldsmith https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/5624/fep-5624.md

fep

Fediverse Enhancement Proposals

Codeberg.org

Sloan Studio Aug 5, 2023

@dgoldsmith @marcel Is there a reason not to allow ads to generate revenue? It doesn’t seem to go against the principle of the platform, right?

Debbie Goldsmith 🏳️‍⚧️♾️🇺🇦Aug 5, 2023

@SloanStudio @marcel Lots of people hate ads (including me). I prefer to donate and/or pay for subscriptions. Some instances may choose to include ads, but the impression I get is most existing users don't want that and won't accept it.

Sloan Studio Aug 5, 2023

@dgoldsmith @marcel Yeah, I'm wondering though what the answer is to help this be successful. Many want services for “free”.

Zaya the Jew Aug 11, 2023

@SloanStudio @dgoldsmith @marcel Ads themselves don't bother me that much personally; the problem however with ads is the way they incentivise algorithm design towards favouring addictiveness, outrage and toxicity.

Zaya the Jew Aug 11, 2023

@SloanStudio @dgoldsmith @marcel I think we have to move people to low-cost subscriptions. A couple dollars a month should be enough. That doesn't exclude anyone from an affordability point of view, but it may exclude trolls and bots and spam, and would fund the networks in a healthier way than ads. #mastodon #fediverse #socialmedia

Sloan Studio Aug 11, 2023

@zayathejew @dgoldsmith @marcel Maybe, that adds a barrier to entry for new users, though it could be a month free trial or something… and then even $1 may be too much in some markets.

Zaya the Jew Aug 11, 2023

@SloanStudio @dgoldsmith @marcel I mean I guess in those markets you could make it whatever the equivalent is for the general population in that market of what a buck is in the US

Nick has moved to Mathstodon Aug 6, 2023

@dgoldsmith It's not clear to me from that roadmap page: Is there an easy way to find more detail on the items there? I was assuming that they probably correspond to issues on Github but the items on that page don't appear to be links.

Debbie Goldsmith 🏳️‍⚧️♾️🇺🇦Aug 6, 2023

@internic I'm not aware of any further information available for features on the road map.

Brendan Jones Aug 11, 2023

@internic @dgoldsmith They don’t correspond to issues on GitHub, which is a ridiculous situation.

DJGummikuh Aug 6, 2023

@dgoldsmith I am really happy that quotes are highest priority by now. When I joined most people vilified quotes, whereas I am really missing that functionality

Hiker Aug 7, 2023

@dgoldsmith This attitude of entitlement is simply embarrassing - and the whole thing has to be free of charge, of course. Oh boy.

Robin Cafolla Aug 7, 2023

@dgoldsmith yes, and the fact that it's written in Ruby contributes to that. I'd love to pitch in, but I'd rather scratch out my own eyes then work in Ruby.

blobcatverified

@dgoldsmith I clicked the link but couldn’t see where I would go to become and code contributor. Do you know where I’d do this?

Debbie Goldsmith 🏳️‍⚧️♾️🇺🇦Aug 7, 2023

@Geekpulp
GIt repo: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon
Discussion: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/discussions

mastodon/mastodon

Your self-hosted, globally interconnected microblogging community - mastodon/mastodon

GitHub

Vyr Cossont 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Aug 8, 2023

@dgoldsmith hi, as someone who is actually qualified to implement extended full text search for Mastodon, having literally done it already and being familiar with the technical issues:

money and staffing aren't the problem.

oh, sure, there's a minor debate around choosing an opt-in mechanism, but AP as it exists is not capable of enforcing restrictions on what happens to a post after a remote server has it. (an AP that did that would no longer do most of the things it does now, because it'd be an E2EE protocol.) so when we're talking about how "The restrictions are intended to protect vulnerable users."… they can't, and have never been able to. any server is ultimately free to ignore things like visibility levels and delete activities, and the same goes for search opt-in flags. it's just asking nicely, and that's not a hard technical problem at all.

the problem is the will to do it, and the community management necessary to handle all the complaining.

#ActivityPub #FullTextSearch

Vyr Cossont 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Aug 8, 2023

@dgoldsmith not that we shouldn't implement the asking nicely bit. we should make it easy to ask politely! we just shouldn't pretend that it's actually protective, and acknowledge that trying to enforce compliance through technical rather than social measures isn't gonna work.

i'm going to quote the Fedibird developer @noellabo here about opt-in flags. Fedibird is the only Fedi server i'm aware of that's deployed an opt-in mechanism aside from public visibility by itself.

> Incorporating this feature will have no impact on implementations that ignore it. However, by carefully nurturing this feature ourselves, we can provide a way to implement a consensus search service on Fediverse for Fediverse search engines and new services considering full-text search.

— https://fedibird.com/@noellabo/110829053193494985

のえる (@[email protected])

@[email protected] Firefish welcomes the ability for users to explicitly declare the search scope of their posts. There are two ways to do this: by default, per account, or per post. I will summarize Fedibird's specifications later. Incorporating this feature will have no impact on implementations that ignore it. However, by carefully nurturing this feature ourselves, we can provide a way to implement a consensus search service on Fediverse for Fediverse search engines and new services considering full-text search.

Fedibird

Tim Bray Aug 20, 2023

@vyr @dgoldsmith

Umm… have a close look at what's being planned for Masto 4.2.

Chris Aug 11, 2023

@dgoldsmith @Datendealerin And people just outright forget that The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter didn't have these things from the start. People simply used to quote tweets by including a link to the original. Only when Twitter discovered this as a pattern did they build the feature we now take for granted.

Brendan Jones Aug 11, 2023

@dgoldsmith @NatureMC Do you know for sure that it’s a human-shortage problem? From discussion on issues in the GitHub repo it looks more like a product management problem. As in, there’s very little contribution direction for anyone outside the mastodon team. People say they are willing to work on things but there’s little direction for them on which issues have priority, what the user and functional requirements are for any given solution, etc.

Brendan Jones Aug 11, 2023

@dgoldsmith @NatureMC And don’t even think about trying to contribute non-code skills. UI and UX? Absolutely zero way to contribute afaik.

I’m all for giving the mastodon team more money (I donate recurringly), but they also need to enable their community to contribute. They have a massive untapped resource going to waste.