5 ms·

Mastodon Web Space Search Tool

62 points by ohjeez 4y ago

realitysballs 4y ago
I like where this is headed by I have some constructive criticism: Since most people think of mastodon as one single service, why can’t you just search all known Instances by default and then allow users to reduce to specific instances as a sort of filter option? Reason is because this early on , not looking like there is any real logic to which instance you are going to find one user or content and you’ll essentially have to guess where to point your search query at.
- jeffalyanak 4y ago
  Google "or" searches are limited to 10 sites. There are thousands of instances.
urbandw311er 4y ago
Out of interest, is a large cross-instance search tool like this aligned with the mastodon ethos?
- lixtra 4y ago
  The tool is Google. The text is about how to use Google to search Mastodon.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  Search unlocked the web and made it discoverable and navigable for most. For new federated services to be relevant, there needs to be some (hopefully a bunch of) ways to discover those piles of standards-based stuff.
- nomel 4y ago
  Religion rarely aligns with practicality.
- int_19h 4y ago
  Is there any consistent "Mastodon ethos"? Or is it an ethos of a subset of the community that wishes it were universal?
  - CaptainFever 4y ago
    Furthermore, Mastodon is just one software. There are tons of other softwares with different cultures that formed, such as Pleroma/Akkoma, PeerTube, Plume/WriteFreely, Lemmy… I would also take this opportunity to point out that Lemmy already has full-text search.
- jefftk 4y ago
  Yes: this is limited to searching the part of Mastodon that has opted in to the web crawler indexing.
  - CaptainFever 4y ago
    I would like to point out that “Opt out of search indexing”, the feature you’re likely referring to, does not work perfectly. From my experiments, the user’s own pages are opted-out, but their content is federated to other servers (by design), which is then rendered on other servers without the opt-out. Or at least, where their content is part of another piece of content (eg as a reply, or as a parent post).
- VectorLock 4y ago
  A lot of people in the Fediverse community will probably shit a brick over this. Pretty much just like tbray says.
  - boyter 4y ago
    100% people will freak out over this.
- whalesalad 4y ago
  I can’t imagine why people would be upset about this. The entire purpose of mastodon and the fediverse is OPEN communication. If you don’t want people seeing your content don’t make it publicly accessible.
  - CaptainFever 4y ago
    From my time in the Fediverse, it seems that people have come to expect privacy from two things: 1) Privacy by obscurity. The platform was too small for people to care, so content was sort of private, until it was put into the spotlight. 2) Social shaming as a way to maintain the above. However, others have pointed out that this does not work on bad actors, or corporations such as Google. As a server admin, I attempt to resolve this by making it very clear in the privacy policy that all content is public. Even direct messages can potentially be public as it is not encrypted and federated to a number of untrusted servers. Indeed, even the default Mastodon UI warns the user of such, telling them not to share sensitive information over direct messages, and when deleting their account, mentioning that their content may still (very likely) live on in other servers.
- somenewaccount1 4y ago
  Interesting that it's not. Without a global search space it makes mastadon look like a poor version of AOL chat rooms.
  - 0x6c6f6c 4y ago
    Well now I want to theme/fork Mastadon or Pleroma to do this.
mlinksva 4y ago
TIL Google Search will OR up to 10 site:s.
jchook 4y ago
Interesting that this article links to an Israeli website to list the ISO 639-1 language two-letter code. The list is available on Wikipedia[1] but the original ISO document is ridiculously behind a $180 paywall[2]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes 2. https://www.iso.org/standard/22109.html https://www.iso.org/standard/22109.html
boyter 4y ago
I hope the author has their flame proof pants on. The mastodon community (well portions of it, its not one community) will not appreciate this sort of thing at all. This was somewhat covered previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34221851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34221851 but is worth having a look at. In short though, any attempts to do this tends to result in huge block lists, the hashtag #fediblock circulating around, and in some cases outright personal attacks on the people behind it.
- tbrownaw 4y ago
  Not sure how you put a google query builder on a naughty list what with how it wouldn't have to talk to any of your instances directly.
  - boyter 4y ago
    I could totally see there being a mass movement to add robot.txt to opt everyone out of being indexed. Then a movement to defederate anyone who allows indexing. Then hopefully a move to allow-list federation which I personally have suggested for a while now as the only sensible move if they really want some privacy.
    - CaptainFever 4y ago
      I can see the “defederate from indexing” movement too, although this may get pushback from creators that rely on social media to make a living or to self promote. (Checking for “web search tool”, #Google and #Fediblock from mastodon.social, it seems like people have not noticed yet.) I would like to point out that HN has actually discussed the “no search social media” idea before, where it was called pseudo-privacy[1]. Whitelisting makes me worried for the future of decentralised social media, as higher barriers for creating new instances encourage consolidation instead of diversity and decentralisation. It’s true that it would make moderation easier, though. Indeed, one of the main barriers to spam right now is perhaps the cost of domains. Speaking of which, this also makes me worried how the Fediverse will deal with its inevitable spam problem, without simply saying “the volunteer mods will take care of it”. Or perhaps that is a legit strategy, I’m not sure. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22317234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22317234

62 points by ohjeez 4y ago

I like where this is headed by I have some constructive criticism: Since most people think of mastodon as one single service, why can’t you just search all known Instances by default and then allow users to reduce to specific instances as a sort of filter option? Reason is because this early on , not looking like there is any real logic to which instance you are going to find one user or content and you’ll essentially have to guess where to point your search query at.

jeffalyanak 4y ago
Google "or" searches are limited to 10 sites. There are thousands of instances.

urbandw311er 4y ago

Out of interest, is a large cross-instance search tool like this aligned with the mastodon ethos?

lixtra 4y ago
The tool is Google. The text is about how to use Google to search Mastodon.
CharlesW 4y ago
Search unlocked the web and made it discoverable and navigable for most. For new federated services to be relevant, there needs to be some (hopefully a bunch of) ways to discover those piles of standards-based stuff.
nomel 4y ago
Religion rarely aligns with practicality.
int_19h 4y ago
Is there any consistent "Mastodon ethos"? Or is it an ethos of a subset of the community that wishes it were universal?
- CaptainFever 4y ago
  Furthermore, Mastodon is just one software. There are tons of other softwares with different cultures that formed, such as Pleroma/Akkoma, PeerTube, Plume/WriteFreely, Lemmy… I would also take this opportunity to point out that Lemmy already has full-text search.
jefftk 4y ago
Yes: this is limited to searching the part of Mastodon that has opted in to the web crawler indexing.
- CaptainFever 4y ago
  I would like to point out that “Opt out of search indexing”, the feature you’re likely referring to, does not work perfectly. From my experiments, the user’s own pages are opted-out, but their content is federated to other servers (by design), which is then rendered on other servers without the opt-out. Or at least, where their content is part of another piece of content (eg as a reply, or as a parent post).
VectorLock 4y ago
A lot of people in the Fediverse community will probably shit a brick over this. Pretty much just like tbray says.
- boyter 4y ago
  100% people will freak out over this.
whalesalad 4y ago
I can’t imagine why people would be upset about this. The entire purpose of mastodon and the fediverse is OPEN communication. If you don’t want people seeing your content don’t make it publicly accessible.
- CaptainFever 4y ago
  From my time in the Fediverse, it seems that people have come to expect privacy from two things: 1) Privacy by obscurity. The platform was too small for people to care, so content was sort of private, until it was put into the spotlight. 2) Social shaming as a way to maintain the above. However, others have pointed out that this does not work on bad actors, or corporations such as Google. As a server admin, I attempt to resolve this by making it very clear in the privacy policy that all content is public. Even direct messages can potentially be public as it is not encrypted and federated to a number of untrusted servers. Indeed, even the default Mastodon UI warns the user of such, telling them not to share sensitive information over direct messages, and when deleting their account, mentioning that their content may still (very likely) live on in other servers.
somenewaccount1 4y ago
Interesting that it's not. Without a global search space it makes mastadon look like a poor version of AOL chat rooms.
- 0x6c6f6c 4y ago
  Well now I want to theme/fork Mastadon or Pleroma to do this.

mlinksva 4y ago

TIL Google Search will OR up to 10 site:s.

jchook 4y ago

Interesting that this article links to an Israeli website to list the ISO 639-1 language two-letter code. The list is available on Wikipedia[1] but the original ISO document is ridiculously behind a $180 paywall[2]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes 2. https://www.iso.org/standard/22109.html https://www.iso.org/standard/22109.html

boyter 4y ago

I hope the author has their flame proof pants on. The mastodon community (well portions of it, its not one community) will not appreciate this sort of thing at all. This was somewhat covered previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34221851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34221851 but is worth having a look at. In short though, any attempts to do this tends to result in huge block lists, the hashtag #fediblock circulating around, and in some cases outright personal attacks on the people behind it.

tbrownaw 4y ago
Not sure how you put a google query builder on a naughty list what with how it wouldn't have to talk to any of your instances directly.
- boyter 4y ago
  I could totally see there being a mass movement to add robot.txt to opt everyone out of being indexed. Then a movement to defederate anyone who allows indexing. Then hopefully a move to allow-list federation which I personally have suggested for a while now as the only sensible move if they really want some privacy.
  - CaptainFever 4y ago
    I can see the “defederate from indexing” movement too, although this may get pushback from creators that rely on social media to make a living or to self promote. (Checking for “web search tool”, #Google and #Fediblock from mastodon.social, it seems like people have not noticed yet.) I would like to point out that HN has actually discussed the “no search social media” idea before, where it was called pseudo-privacy[1]. Whitelisting makes me worried for the future of decentralised social media, as higher barriers for creating new instances encourage consolidation instead of diversity and decentralisation. It’s true that it would make moderation easier, though. Indeed, one of the main barriers to spam right now is perhaps the cost of domains. Speaking of which, this also makes me worried how the Fediverse will deal with its inevitable spam problem, without simply saying “the volunteer mods will take care of it”. Or perhaps that is a legit strategy, I’m not sure. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22317234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22317234