Mastodawn

Henry Aug 11, 2024

@markwyner Thanks, that's really useful!

paul Aug 11, 2024

@markwyner

the from:me was a great instead of typing from:[email protected]

Rui Malheiro Aug 11, 2024

@markwyner boosted, favorited, bookmarked.
@stn @katzentratschen @DeltaWye @ClaireFromClare @luca

Anders Norén Aug 11, 2024

@markwyner

I read somewhere that only a few percent of all Mastodon users have opted into text search.

Aug 11, 2024

@violanders I don’t know what the percentage is, but I do suspect it’s small-ish. I’d also venture a guess that the percentage is higher among newer Mastodon folks than the old schoolers.

But that’s the beauty of the platform. People can decide whether or not they wanna be found.

Anders Norén Aug 11, 2024

@markwyner
I suspect that there are a few percent users who don't want to be found (some of which even delete their posts automatically), a few percent users who are interested in searching (these have already opted in) and a huge silent majority who aren't interested in searching (these will never bother to opt in b/c they don't see the point).

Ferrous Aug 12, 2024

@violanders @markwyner I would imagine a substantial proportion of longer-term users haven't registered that it's possible now after all that time people said it was bad.

Also, how many of us are on servers that still don't allow it? I'm guessing that's why it doesn't work for me yet...

@ferrous @violanders that’s ine of the reasons I wrote the article. I was talking with @stn about search and he’s like “actually, they massively improved search.” I looked, and sure enough, it was a whole new world.

Regarding it’s not working for you, it’s possible your admins haven’t enabled Elasticsearch.” If you really want this, maybe reach out to them. It may not be intentional on their part.

Kalle Kniivilä Aug 12, 2024

@violanders @markwyner In any case, if you use #pachli Android client for Mastodon, searching is a lot easier, as there is a nice interface for all the operators.

Sara Joy

@violanders @markwyner I think it's probably worth including how to opt into your posts being made searchable in this article - mentioning either way that it won't find anything from people who have remained opted out to search.

Edit: the info is there! I was failing to skim read successfully...

Sara Joy

@violanders @markwyner

i.e. the link to these settings would be (on vanilla Mastodon web client) your-instance.tld/settings/privacy

@sarajw thanks. I actually do mention opt-in/out for people and full-text enabling for admins. They’re in my notes near the beginning of the piece.

Sara Joy

@markwyner curse my skim reading! Thank you

@sarajw 😂 To be fair, I’m far too verbose.

@markwyner nah :)

@markwyner I often look for other posts that shared a specific link by searching the link within quotes.

FunGuy2PlayWith Aug 11, 2024

@markwyner
@GottaLaff

Laffy, you are (even more) famous!

Aug 11, 2024

@funguy2playwith @GottaLaff ha ha. If the boot fits. She’s gotta be someone people search for, eh?

Potung Thul Aug 12, 2024

Holy cow, @GottaLaff , there's some woman named Nicole Sandler who's trying to pretend to be you!

Good thing
@funguy2playwith brought this to my attention!

In all seriousness, great article, @markwyner ! Very useful.

Laffy Aug 12, 2024

@potungthul @funguy2playwith @markwyner LOL, originally someone with a huge account recommended a bunch of follows. I was one, but he misidentified me as Nicole Sandler.

People do this all the time.

@funguy2playwith @markwyner

Potung Thul Aug 12, 2024

@GottaLaff

I'm guessing it's because your profile lists your official website as a blog on Nicole Sandler's site.

Waiting for you to set up your own at Laffy.ca or something... :)

Mark A. ⏏️ {FalconMarkSix}Aug 11, 2024

@markwyner @stn @katzentratschen @DeltaWye @ClaireFromClare @luca

Thank you so much for this guide!!!

Aug 11, 2024

@FalconMarkSix you’re absolutely welcome.

B.Aug 12, 2024

@markwyner @stn @katzentratschen @DeltaWye @ClaireFromClare @luca Thanks Mark, great summary. The Mastodon standard search functions (e.g. has:) do not work in the Tusky client. Any idea to get it working @Tusky ?

#Tusky

@bhaug thanks! Hopefully Tusky can get that working for you. If some of it works, that's great. The search in @ivory is an absolute nightmare. 100% unusable. So kudos to Tusky for getting most of it right.

Tusky Aug 17, 2024

@bhaug @markwyner @stn @katzentratschen @DeltaWye @ClaireFromClare @luca we will take it into account :)

B.Aug 17, 2024

@Tusky @markwyner @stn @katzentratschen @DeltaWye @ClaireFromClare @luca Thank you @Tusky

@markwyner This is awesome... I **always** struggle with search on Masto, so this will be real useful! Thanks for creating it! @stn @katzentratschen @DeltaWye @ClaireFromClare @luca

@andycarolan yay! You’re welcome. I’m glad you found it useful. I know I did, after I figured it out. 😂

@markwyner I use Ivory on iOS/MacOS, and really struggle with search. I have much better results with Mastodon running in a browser when actually searching for something, so your guide will definitely be a huge help!

@andycarolan I can’t get anything useful from Ivory’s search. At all. When I need to search I use the web interface, on iOS and macOS.

@markwyner Yup, Ivory search has never worked well for me at all.

@andycarolan I have 7 Mastodon apps on my iPhone. I use a few of them for different tasks. Wooly has the best search, and a lovely UI. But the dev isn’t active or responsive and hasn’t published anything anywhere in a while. I designed my own but can’t find a developer to build it.

@markwyner Well, it's nice to have a choice haha. I've not tried Wooly... might be worth it for the name alone.

I hope you find a dev for yours... it's awesome to see stuff being built for fedi!

@markwyner Very useful! Thank you! ✨

@jdlbt you’re welcome!

Jonathan Schofield Oct 17, 2024

@markwyner really good. Thank you.

And thanks @kathimmel for boosting

Oct 17, 2024

@urlyman

So glad you found it helpful.

@kathimmel

Moonshine Brigade Jan 7, 2025

@markwyner @stn @katzentratschen @DeltaWye @ClaireFromClare @luca last week @basspistol explained to me that you can find #peertube users by copy/pasting the url from a video in the #mastodon searchbar.

I just tried it with a #Pixelfed image and that worked as well. I guess you can find all #fedi content in a similar fashion.

Is that something to add to your article?

Jan 7, 2025

@moonshinebrigade

That’s a good point. I’ve actually considered writing a new piece about how to make better use of the Fediverse as a whole. People get lost in how all of those ecosystems are connected. And, more importantly, how you connect the dots in your platform of choice.

And you can search by name alone, even without a URL, and find all of those profiles. IF your instance knows about them.

Anyway, food for thought. I’m gonna reflect on that. Thank you.

Moonshine Brigade Jan 7, 2025

@markwyner cool!
Maybe mention the #StarterPack as well? https://fedidevs.com/starter-packs/

Mastodon Starter Pack Directory | Fedidevs

Discover, create, and share Mastodon starter packs to help new users find interesting accounts to follow.

Jan 7, 2025

@moonshinebrigade I began playing with this. I started one just to test it out. I’m gonna compile some and share them when they’re ready.

Colin Aug 12, 2025

@markwyner nice @DeltaWye ya got a mention.

iamdtms Oct 5, 2025

@markwyner @stn @katzentratschen @DeltaWye @ClaireFromClare @luca Good article, thank you.
"Remnant of the ashes" effect here.

1. Mastodon instance removed, user data still remains. uiuxdev.social (2022)

2. Pixelfed user removed, Mastodon output still available. metapixl.com

FlohEinstein Nov 22

@markwyner someone boosted this very useful article of yours into my timeline. But please tell me, do you still think that ISO8601 dates "aren’t intuitive but are functional"? 😁

Nov 22

@FlohEinstein nice. Well, intuitive is subjective in this context, eh?

Thanks for your kind words. I hope you find it helpful.

FlohEinstein Nov 22

@markwyner it's really helpful, I didn't know about the search syntax tricks!
Yes, I guess it's subjective - I'm a big believer in certain units and formats, that's why I wrote this a while ago:
https://chaos.social/@FlohEinstein/111719587778317110

FlohEinstein (@[email protected])

We should not only visibly display our pronouns, but also our preferred units of measurements and data types: Imagine all the people knowing how to communicate from lines like: they/them kg/m/s/K/ISO8601(Z)/UTF-8

chaos.social

Chad McCullough Nov 23

@markwyner @stn Bookmarked. Thanks!

@katzentratschen @DeltaWye @ClaireFromClare @luca

Nov 23

@cmccullough 🙌🏻

Rev. Eric Burrows-Stone ⳨Mar 16

@markwyner

This is super helpful! Thanks for putting this together!