RE: https://mastodon.social/@nixCraft/116606460885131034

So we *really* need to come up with solutions to make the living Internet (the part with real people) navigable, huh?

This isn't just obnoxious. This is an effort to make sure you don't find anything on your own or stumble into anything unexpected.

I used to be an expert at using Google to find stuff, but it's been years since any of that worked.

I don't know that the solution is another search engine, at least not one that resembles what search engines are now.

I want to be able to find stuff put out by actual human beings, not AI slop or SEO garbage.

How do we make it possible to still find new connections & information in such a hostile space?

To me, it's not a search problem per se. We have to get out of the zombie-web. We have to be able to find & link together the real, living Internet.

I know that the non-corporate web exists, because here I am on Fedi.

Google searches mostly bring me results from what is effectively a different Internet: an empty corporate wasteland. Google doesn't want me to find anything else.

I guess in a sense I already use Fedi as my search engine.

If I'm not in a rush & don't need a result right now, it works pretty well to post & ask people "where can I find...?"

I will eventually get some people pointing me to real resources that they find valuable.

@artemis I think what you are leading towards is we need to form communities to help each other find real internet things. Mastodon already has some communities and I know some hashtags meant to help people find things.

@VANTABlack2000
I think that's at least part of the solution.

What are the hashtags you are thinking of?

@artemis #FediHire is one of them and I can't remember it off the top of my head, but I think there is one for stuff similar to what r/TipOfMyTongue is where you can't think of something if that makes sense. Of course you have stuff like #art and things like that that can help find things of a specific topic.

On that note I am someone you can ask about games and some types of tech since I try to look for FOSS tech where I can.

Edit: From some searching #TipOfMyTongue seems to be a thing.

@VANTABlack2000 @artemis

I had a very brief look and it is surprising how few replies #tipofmytongue or #tomt get.