 Full text search is going to encourage the use of Masto as a tool for storing information. People will make posts and expect to be able to look them up later for reference. This is a terrible practice, people did this withnthe dead bird and now lots of stuff is either gone, or inacessable. Masto is not a place to keep data long term. If you have things you need for long term reference then copy that stuff to a website that you run and are in control of. One where you know it will stay. 19 comments
 @jameschip I confess I do that a lot, search my old posts. I make off-line backups of my archive every now and then. @jameschip I tend to prefer the practice of saving important data on three hard drives, and ensuring that one is not connected to the internet. @jameschip That's a people problem, not a technology problem. People will always do the wrong thing. However being unable to find anything on here without playing "guess the hashtag" is a technology problem. Day 1 of Mastodon for casual users - it's dead, there's nothing to read, I don't know anyone, the search is broken, I'm off back to Twitter. But also yes, stop storing important stuff on social media, that's not its purpose. @james no, it is a technology problem. People will use the technology how the technology implies it can be used. Allowing people to bookmark and search up toots implies that they aren't impermanent, when they are very likely to just vanish or become inacessable at any moment. @jameschip but implication is not intent. A screwdriver implies it can be used to open paint cans, but if you try you might bend it. If people learn posts are not permanent, they've learnt a useful lesson about data online. If it's not on your machine, it can just go away. I don't believe in protecting users from every dumb mistake, it just makes smarter idiots. @shlee it is a feature, not a bug. Account deletion is a feature. Bit rot is inherrent to federated networks. @shlee people setting toots to auto delete after X ammount of time. Theres another one. Nothing in this place should be treated as archival  @jameschip That's more about self autonomy (or self governance) than protocol? Giving people the OPTION to auto delete isn't inherent part of the protocol... @shlee this isn't abot protocol but about a feature being added that will imply to people that content should be acessible long term, when that is not the case. @jameschip ok. that said.. where is the line then? Toots could have TTLs? similar to snapchat with years.  @jameschip Conversely, if you don't want people constantly dredging up things you said years ago, the addition of full text search is a good time to set your posts to auto-delete. (Which is, I believe, good practice for most people anyway.) @James Chip It depends a lot of type of software. For Masto it is true, but Mastodon is not the only social software and there are other which are more targeted to make online archive and they are good at it. In fact, "websites" like Wordpress sites can have ActivityPub plugin and archive portals can have social features too. And it is good idea, you can follow new accessions on archival portals and other news. Archives can actually be social sites.
@jameschip Sounds like Slack - people think it is actually useful for such things when it is mostly just a noisy version of IRC with a really ugly API  @jameschip I agree that’s a terrible practice, but my main counterpoint would be that people are going to do it anyway. that almost certainly means search is coming, one way or another. Had my Trevor Seton “on site“, in a way that can respect the fediverse, then buy some external Google service or whatever. But yes, people should make their own websites and put things there. @jameschip At this point, I've accepted that nothing is permanent on the internet. There might be a few small things I want people to be able to access long term, but I'm too lazy to run my own server.  @jameschip from my perspective full text search is more about following unfolding/current events and/or discovering new accounts posting about same. That was the only thing I ever used search on twitter for, and it was also the only thing I ever used twitter for. I don’t think it would have ever occurred to me to use search on twitter or mastodon for what you’re suggesting. |
Gregory's Server
Basically, stop treating brittle social sites as archival. It never was a good idea, and it never will be.