WebScorpion
Eugen RochkoIf you'd like your (public) posts to appear in search results on Mastodon, remember that you need to opt-in. Edit Profile → Privacy and Reach → Include public posts in search results. 14K people have opted-in so far!
Marcus Adams@Gargron I found this new (or new to me) option the other day when I was checking something else and turned it on. I figure if the post is public it's not like I'm trying to hide it anyway, so why not let it be indexed for searching? Maybe some cool new people will find me and we can interact on Mastodon, 🙂
ekes>I figure if the post is public it's not like I'm trying to hide it anyway, so why not let it be indexed for searching?
Search lightens the barrier for analyses of patterns in your posts and discovery based on certain phrases instead of those you intended (hashtags).
Most µblog in the moment, they aren't writing timeless commentary.
As it may, it does give a greater purpose to the "unlisted" visibility setting (open lock).
Pity the option is missing in the official app.
MaryPotSome people do not want their posts searchable because they are criticizing governments or government agencies that can make their lives miserable if their posts are found and linked to them.
Better safe than sorry.
Opt-in is good. It means you have to say yes instead of figuring out how to say no.
It's important not to forget that Mastodon is part of a collection of networks.
That means, the more you rely on a privacy feature of a particular platform, the more likely you will need to review who you let follow your profile aside from managing the visibility setting of your individual posts.
So treat the opt-ins as mufflers for your exposure, rather than a clear-cut method of isolation.
Always almost overly critical to who I let follow me - here and everywhere else. Not just because I am then able to say what I think about eg. politicians, but also because I have had 1 too many run-ins with trolls.
I believe in benefit-of-the-doubt, but not when it comes to controlling who follows me.
oshy@Gargron Hehe I have to wait until my instance is updated
Kristin (vis.social Admin)@Gargron Are you seeing enough opt-ins to see how this will increase server costs for smaller instances?
Vincent St. Pierre@Gargron I'm opted in!
... I had to look for it, though. It's a smidgen hidden.
Grant 🇺🇦ArmUkraine🇺🇦
Viola@Gargron What will happen then? Something good? Something Bad?
And I want to ad music to pictures and Videos, to avoid Insta and TiKTok
Could you do Magic? 🥺 Magic it happen, please?
MHLoppy (has moved!)@ViolaB If you enable it, people will be able to find your posts when they do a search (without needing to use hashtags). For example if you opt in and someone searched for "magic" on Mastodon, your post would show up.
Note that public posts can still be searched with a normal search engine even with the setting off.
Pixelfed ( https://pixelfed.org ) is an Insta replacement if you haven't seen that yet. A Stories feature is being developed, but it might not have a music library like TikTok.
Kev
Steve GisselbrechtIt sounds like maybe you wanna check out peertube? It's a part of the fediverse that offers something like that, and you can follow those accounts from mastodon accounts.
Okay, why is this so complicated for peole which aren't nerds?
Florens Verschelde@ViolaB @stevegis_ssg Mostly because it costs dozens of dollars per user per year to design, code and manage infrastructure for this kind of feature. More if you’re a frequent poster of audio/video.
@ViolaB @stevegis_ssg Big commercial services such as YouTube or TikTok fund this work with billions of investment, and try to turn a profit by showing you ads. If they're cheap or are showing only a few ads, they're probably not profitable yet, and are losing billions a year trying to corner the market (to raise prices or show more ads later, see Uber for instance, or Prime Video).
@ViolaB @stevegis_ssg Independent services like Mastodon and PeerTube try to provide similar services which are funded in a few ways:
- federation, which means splitting the hosting and maintenance costs between many organizations (so you don't need a billion dollar company, you can have many $10–500k services)
- donations
- for PeerTube: peer-to-peer streaming (make users share data directly to reduce bandwidth used by the instances; think carpooling instead of taxis)
@ViolaB @stevegis_ssg Those funding and cost management methods have some consequences in the user experience. There isn't one billion-dollar entity that can hire an army of designers and developers and pay for huge datacenters full of servers. Most developers and designers are volunteers, or at best a handful of people funded by donations. The cost-splitting strategy means users have to manage choices like "choose an instance".
@ViolaB @stevegis_ssg you have to let the nerd in a little tiny bit
I googled 'what is the fediverse' seven years ago and now my bird table is run by a raspberry pi
Okay then I have seven years from now on. 😁
KenWebDevBTW@Gargron I'm one of those 14k!
Quinn Comendant 🐧@Gargron Is that 14K people out of the 282K active users on mastodon.social, or only 14K people out of _all Mastodon users on the fediverse_? 🥺
Darnell Clayton 
@Gargron I just did! Thanks for making this opt-in, as it addresses privacy issues as well as those who want their posts discoverable.
This could be the beginning of a real “search engine” that competes with #Google. An ad free search engine powered by the #Fediverse! 🥳
Mitex Leo 
Rainer AI Blockchain Rehak 4.0
Frozen Canuck
Elizabeth Sweet@frozencanuck @Gargron Why don’t I see those options? Does that mean that an update hasn’t happened?
Shari Spiewak
Andrea Grandi 🦕@Gargron is there a way (an API? An info on the server status page?) to see the percentage / number of users who opted in? Thanks
@andreagrandi No, there is not
Romanovich 🇺🇦@Gargron Thank you very much for the useful information. Good luck to you and have a nice day.
Alon@Gargron Please make it opt-out (or not even opt-out - the stalker has other tools to get through); the opt-in infrastructure is non-obvious and you're competing with alternatives that have way better searchability.
Dr. Eric J. Fielding, PhD@Gargron I think I opted in some time ago, but now I can't find that setting here on the web browser interface. It seems very hard to find it. I can't remember now where I set it earlier.
Perpetual Mystic@EricFielding @Gargron yeah, I can't find it on my phone - maybe on my PC ..?
Tom Watson
Mufasaglasgow.social server is running Mastodon v4.1.4 and needs to be running v4.2.0 or higher to have this feature.
Uckermark MacGyver 
Russ@TomWatson it requires your instance to be updated to Mastodon v4.2.0, once your admin(s) have done so you'll be able to opt-in 
max oakland@Gargron this doesn’t seem to work on mobile
@maxoakland @Gargron You mean on the mobile app ?
Prem Kumar Aparanji 👶🤖🐘@Gargron thanks for sharing ... Didn't know ... Opted in now
Kathy E. Gill 🇺🇦Seems to be accessible on desktop browser only.
Idealistic Pragmatist 
@Gargron Otherwise posts only appear in all other search engines...
SAFIKAMAL79@Gargron oh fine
MAHanson@Gargron @HansZauner not sure why but I found this in Edit Profile -> Preferences -> Other but I didn't have any sort of "Privacy and Reach" section.
Hans ZaunerIt's not under "preferences", but a separate tab at the top on the "edit profile" page.
Dr Pieter Peach@MarkHanson I see some others in the thread here saying that it's unfortunately only appearing on the desktop view, which sounds like a bug.
@russjr08 others also noting server instance needs to update possibly.
@MarkHanson True! I meant to mention that here as well!
Erik (📚🧑🏻💻👾)@MarkHanson That’s a different setting. You cannot find the one you’re actually looking for because the mastodon instance your account is based on isn’t updated to the version of mastodon that supports this feature in the first place. :)