@r000t

> what one is supposed to do about people, in large numbers btw, throwing terms like that into one's fedi search engine.

That is a good question. I didn't like doing it to FSE, but the idea was to stop those people from making accounts. (That didn't stop until boardreader.com went away.) I think you're relatively immune if it's a search engine, right, it's automated indexing.

> I suspect it's people looking for results to *report* to authorities based on searches those IPs run before and after

Like they are looking for accounts to report, or they are trying to get rid of your search engine?

> Also wondering if hardcoding joke responses helps me at all or if it establishes me as a publisher making editorial decisions.

Reasonable steps to avoid illegal activity don't constitute editorial decisions.