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1. Richard MacManus (ricmac@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2024 01:38:47 JST Richard MacManus

   Must-read post about #search on Mastodon. Has made me adjust my own take on this issue. -> "Mastodon is not Google or any other full-text engine, nor should it be. It is a platform for community and conversation. Just as conversations do not echo in an enclosed space forever, conversation search should be somewhat ephemeral."
   https://researchbuzz.masto.host/@researchbuzz/112649725372562847

   • Eugen Rochko (gargron@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2024 01:38:47 JST Eugen Rochko

     in reply to

     • Calishat

     @ricmac @Researchbuzz This is outdated or misinformed. Mastodon has had full text search capabilities for quite some time now.

   • Eugen Rochko (gargron@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2024 01:42:03 JST Eugen Rochko

     in reply to

     • Brian Dear

     @brianstorms @ricmac Which functionality is lacking? Can you give an example of a search query and how the results differed from your expectations?

   • Brian Dear (brianstorms@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2024 01:42:04 JST Brian Dear

     in reply to

     @ricmac

     And that is why Mastodon is stuck at 15 million accounts, only a fraction of which are active in any meaningful sense.

     The lack of search functionality, blocked by a purist ideology held by another fraction of the user population, may be elegant (in the nerdy Linux sense) but it is an architectural form of pre-crime censorship and control, which has had clear and obvious effects on the “community” and on these so-called “conversations,” turning Mastodon into a fast-moving river.

   • Richard MacManus (ricmac@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2024 02:16:27 JST Richard MacManus

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Calishat

     @Researchbuzz @Gargron Either way, search is still opt-in on Mastodon, and relatively few have opted in. But yes, it might pay to add a note that it’s not limited to hashtag search anymore. I love the point that social media should be at least partly ephemeral, for the reasons you laid out.

   • Eugen Rochko (gargron@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2024 02:16:27 JST Eugen Rochko

     in reply to

     • Calishat

     @ricmac @Researchbuzz My concern is only that people in the other comments seem to be under the impression that Mastodon doesn't have search based on the way you're making your points.

   • Calishat (researchbuzz@researchbuzz.masto.host)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2024 02:16:29 JST Calishat

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko

     @Gargron @ricmac Yes, and that's fine for those who care to use it. I don't. I think the hashtag search is more than enough.

   • Brian Dear (brianstorms@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2024 02:16:36 JST Brian Dear

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko

     @Gargron @ricmac

     Oh, anything? Everything? Like, for example, I see something in the fast-moving river, and ten minutes later I think, I shoulda clicked on that link, and I try to search for it but no, it be gone, gone, gone, down the river and over the digital waterfall.

     Search is always the single most consistent, most predictable, disappointment in Mastodon. In fact its lack may be the only disappointment in the overall Mastodon experience since I joined in 2017.

     I wish it were not so.

   • Brian Dear (brianstorms@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2024 02:22:33 JST Brian Dear

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko

     @Gargron @ricmac

     Put another way:

     If I search, I want to search *MASTODON* as in the whole damn thing. Across all instances. With sorting ability--relevance, by date/time, etc.

     If there are "blocked" or "hidden" results, I wanna see a count of them as in "Here are 1834 matching results, including 920 redacted results" with an explanation as to why they're redacted, as in, by individual user choice, or by instance policy.

     This place needs TRANSPARENCY.

   • Eugen Rochko (gargron@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2024 02:26:34 JST Eugen Rochko

     in reply to

     • Brian Dear

     @brianstorms @ricmac Not having enough search results for a specific query is not the same thing as there not being a search function, which exists since 2023.

   • Brian Dear (brianstorms@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2024 02:32:24 JST Brian Dear

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko

     @Gargron @ricmac

     As a user I don't care how search functionality is implemented on the back end. I search, and as a user I get nothing, or very little. All I get is the confidence that Mastodon didn't find what I *know* is out there. And that's because of the policy decisions that were built right into the design and architecture, right into the DNA of Mastodon, decisions which essentially guarantee a disappointing search experience for users, regardless of how beautiful the code is.

   • Eugen Rochko (gargron@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2024 02:41:45 JST Eugen Rochko

     in reply to

     • Brian Dear

     @brianstorms @ricmac Search on Mastodon is opt-in because that's how the community wanted it. If certain authors are missing in your results, I suggest approaching them and asking to consider opting-in. I happily use search to find stuff every day.

   • Richard MacManus (ricmac@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2024 02:42:50 JST Richard MacManus

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Brian Dear

     @brianstorms @Gargron Mastodon does have search (including non-hashtag), but users have to opt into it. And yes that is by design. There are pros and cons to that, and relatively few people have opted in so far. But there is a valid reason why that decision was made.

   • Eugen Rochko (gargron@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2024 02:42:50 JST Eugen Rochko

     in reply to

     • Brian Dear

     @ricmac @brianstorms 154k people have opted-in to search. That's fewer than the 878k that have opted in to being featured in discovery algorithms, but I think it's not as few as some people might think.

   • Brian Dear (brianstorms@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2024 03:36:25 JST Brian Dear

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko

     @Gargron @ricmac

     Understood. Let’s stipulate that all these facts are accurate.

     But I’d postulate that by making search opt-in, search is pretty useless. It has hurt discoverability, and to compensate, put awkward burdens on individual users who stuff their toots with character-count-wasting hashtags in an effort to boost discoverability.

     And I’d argue the Network Effect, so crucial to helping social neworks grow and thrive, has been weakened on Mastodon in large part by the search policy.