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Jonathan T

@chartier @dangoodin Quote posts are on the public roadmap for Mastodon, btw: joinmastodon.org/roadmap

Personally I think there are other far more important features that need adding first (such as restricting who can reply to posts and other safety measures).

Also worth pointing out that there are alternatives to Mastodon that don't have its mindshare (or iOS apps) that already support quoting and more normal search such as Calckey/Misskey/Hometown etc.

13 comments
David Chartier

@JonnyT @dangoodin If it's built with safety in mind *first* I am cautiously optimistic, because I *do* see the upside to them.

But these features historically almost never have been. And people unharmed by this stuff just keep trampling on. It's enraging.

Jonathan T

@chartier @dangoodin I'm hoping any QT/QP feature is opt-in only. Likewise, any full-text search features if ever added. (The one exception I think that should have been available from the start is the ability to do full text searches of your own posts - the absence of this is aggravating and there are no privacy concerns with it, assuming it's technically possible to isolate the index needed so that it's only available to you and you alone).

Dan Goodin

@JonnyT @chartier There are a ton of researchers and journalists who need the ability to do full searches. They will continue to stay off Mastodon as long as it doesn't exist. Sounds like several people in this discussion prefer Mastodon to stay small and allow users to post to only a small number of people they know or trust. That's perfectly understandable. But those people really shouldn't be perplexed or angry about Masodon's low user base.

David Chartier

@dangoodin @JonnyT *need -> would like to

Great, then maybe there can be infrastructure eventually to allow that, and most definitely some kind of opt-in mechanism for people who want to participate.

They don't have a right to anyone's data. This is one of the fundamental values people just accepted because, hey, capitalist hellscape and nothing matters anymore.

Dan Goodin

@chartier @JonnyT I have lots of criticisms of the capitalist hellscape, but I don't think you can pin people's need for full search solely on that. Some people's jobs or avocations require it. And if Mastodon won't provide it (even for legitimate reasons) they will choose to go elsewhere. Bottom line, Mastodon people have to chooses between a small neighborhood where everyone knows each other or a town square with critical mass. It will never be both.

Jonathan T replied to Dan

@dangoodin @chartier I'm intrigued. You don't have full text search and access to >90% of the content on Facebook yet it's far more significant and important than Twitter ever was or will be.

It seems to me that you're measuring an expectation to access to content from the perspective of what happened to be available via a single social media platform - Twitter - that wasn't and isn't available elsewhere.

If that's a problem here, it'll be a problem elsewhere too.

Dan Goodin replied to Jonathan

@JonnyT @chartier I have never used Facebook. Ever, so I can't speak to that. I can only say with conviction that until Mastodon search has parity with Twitter's Mastodon will remain an outpost.

Jonathan T replied to Dan

@dangoodin @chartier I'm not disagreeing with you on that latter point, I fully expect Mastodon to remain a minority platform.

But I'm failing to see how access to content here will be all that different on eg. Threads. It's not like Instagram have ever made it easy to get content or data out of that platform so I don't expect they'll do any different with Threads. Bluesky may make it trivial to extract but it's unclear at this point whether or not it'll go anywhere.

Dan Goodin replied to Jonathan

@JonnyT @chartier Yeah, I can't speak at all to Bluesky or Meta platforms. I just know that Mastodon search needs to be at parity with Twitter search. Oh, and quote posts, too.

Jonathan T replied to Dan

@dangoodin @chartier I'm of the opinion that Twitter is already dead. I give it 6 months at most. Once it's gone, there isn't going to be another platform with search parity with Twitter. That era of access to almost everything on a platform will die with it. Mastodon could be that but I don't think the ethos of the place and the people building it will permit it.

Calckey supersedes Mastodon in terms of search etc but I'm not sure it'll get big enough either.

Dan Goodin replied to Jonathan

@JonnyT @chartier Twitter may or may not be dead, but at the risk of repeating myself, Mastodon will never catch on without the capabilities I've mentioned.

Uraael replied to Dan

@dangoodin@infosec.exchange @JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk @chartier@toot.cafe

Other platforms in the Fediverse, e.g. Calckey, that I'm using right now, have both Quote posts and full search and we're suffering zero ill effects from either. Coming from Twitter myself that has really surprised me.

keithzg replied to Dan
@dangoodin @chartier @JonnyT I think the decentralized nature of The Fediverse actually very much means it *can* be both! It's just that depending on where you are within that network, it has to be at some point on a slider between those two options.

As an example of how this is already a thing that is neither true nor false but something the matters depending on where you are, on *my* single-user instance I do in fact have the ability to search beyond my home instance. It only shows posts my instance in turn knows about, so in practice it's largely the same as searching my own full timeline since there's only me that's causing my server to see any posts in the first place, but it certainly works and would mean any large multiuser instances would provide for journalists and researchers the ability to search for all posts anyone on their server sent or received.

The future is now, it's just unevenly distributed.

I'm on Pleroma; a fork of it, Akkoma, appears to have the option of another, more advanced search backend as well: https://docs.akkoma.dev/stable/configuration/search/

(You may be curious to follow the trail of that other search result which happened to use the same phrasing I copy-pasted as a test, you can pull on that thread at https://toot.cat/@woozle/110667344363350567 ).
@dangoodin @chartier @JonnyT I think the decentralized nature of The Fediverse actually very much means it *can* be both! It's just that depending on where you are within that network, it has to be at some point on a slider between those two options.
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