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Mastodon 4.2 released, with (opt-in) search, and UX improvements (blog.joinmastodon.org)
submitted 1 year ago by andypiper@lemmy.world to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
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Lots of small improvements across the user experience, and opt-in search, make this an important release.

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[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago

opt-in search

This is what I don't understand: When people mark a post as public and discoverable, meaning Google and Bing and such can already find and index it, why would one need to opt-in to making it available via Mastodon search? Isn't that what Unlisted is already for?

[-] stad@m.stad.social 11 points 1 year ago

@woelkchen @andypiper Consider it a compromise, given how many people were dead set against *any* search.

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Consider it a compromise, given how many people were dead set against any search.

But public posts are already searchable because they are public. That's what all public posts on the internet are. They are visible to Google and Bing. Defaulting to not make public posts searchable from within Mastodon just drives people to proprietary search engines.

[-] stad@m.stad.social 5 points 1 year ago

@woelkchen I didn't say it was logical, but that doesn't stop a lot of people from objecting.

And I agree it just drives people elsewhere.

[-] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 8 points 1 year ago

I'm not on Mastodon, why were people against search?

[-] stad@m.stad.social 7 points 1 year ago

@SorteKanin Some people object to any feature they have seen be abused on Twitter, whether or not it also has legitimate uses. And as it turns out almost any feature *can* be used to harass. If you want to just have your own little space, search allows bad guys to find you. It of course allows good guys to find you too. Some still do not think that's a worthwhile tradeoff (I don't agree, and I think it's futile, and I support search, btw.)

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I’m not on Mastodon, why were people against search?

Probably because they are illiterate about very basic concepts on the internet.

[-] petunia@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Google and Bing's crawlers can find and index Unlisted posts just as easily as any other.

Just because there are 3rd-party search engines that don't respect people's privacy, doesn't mean that a 1st party search engine should follow their example.

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Which privacy when it comes to posts explicitly tagged as public?

[-] petunia@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

You're conflating tagging a post as public so that it is publicly accessible as being the same thing as consenting to being indexed in a search engine.

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And why wouldn't this be the same thing? Public content is public content. 3rd party services can already access the posts.

[-] petunia@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

The lack of an ability to prevent someone from doing something to you, without compromises on your part, is not the same thing as being okay with it being done to you.

3rd party services can access the posts, because the authors marked them as publicly accessible.

Those same 3rd party services can also index the posts in a search engine, but this is only because there is no feasible technological barrier to prevent them from doing so. If such an imaginary technology did exist, it would have been deployed already.

In the mean time, we can only count on a social solution, which is to merely signal our objections to search engine indexing, in the hope that maybe a law could be drafted that uses that as precedent to make indexing without consent illegal.

Here's a question for you. Do you think it's okay for Google or whoever to install invisible cameras everywhere in public spaces, that were explicitly for the purpose of collecting data to develop a facial recognition model to search people without their consent? Public space is public space ...

[-] wabalabadubdub@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Is it opt-out for performance reasons? If it was opt-in, maybe large instances will crumble.

Anyway, this is a wild guess.

[-] ElectroVagrant@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

It's been awhile since I made a new account on a Mastodon instance, but is search engine indexing enabled by default? If it isn't, then that would probably be part of why this is being made opt-in for Mastodon search, as there's been a vocal portion of folks on Mastodon opposed to search across the board.

Even if search engine indexing was enabled by default, y'know those vocal folks probably disable it ASAP and would be making a fuss if this update went & enabled Mastodon search by default. Which, well, why post publicly at all if the concern's related to privacy or not being bothered by internet randos, but 🤷‍♀️

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

as there’s been a vocal portion of folks on Mastodon opposed to search across the board.

Well, those can tag their posts as Unlisted.

[-] Jackthelad@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

You need to opt-in for your posts to show up in the new full-text search.

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

You need to opt-in for your posts to show up in the new full-text search.

I already wrote that. And what's the point of tagging a post as public and then not being able to find it on Mastodon's search? Public posts are indexable by Google and such already, no matter if the search opt-in checkbox was ticked or not.

[-] asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

This is opting in to Mastodon's search, not third party search engines.

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

This is opting in to Mastodon’s search, not third party search engines.

Yes, that's what I wrote. And my question is what the point is when all public posts are indexed by Google anyway.

[-] Jackthelad@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

You can opt-out of being indexed on search engines.

[-] andypiper@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

There's also a really nice deep dive into the updates here.

[-] flamingmongoose@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 year ago

This looks like a really nice release, loads of polish

[-] russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net 6 points 1 year ago

Looks great! I'm running the upgrade on my instance right now.

For anyone else who is updating, be sure to take a look at the updated dependencies in the upgrade notes.

[-] mojo@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

Hopefully search isn't straight up broken and non functional anymore.

[-] Jackthelad@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

You love to see it.

[-] MossBear@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I love Mastadon. :D

[-] anthoniix@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

It really needs to be opt-out, but this is a good start.

[-] andypiper@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I think forcing all posts to be opted-in to the search, and depending on users to opt-out, would be far more controversial? Either way, the user does get to control this within the platform.

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think forcing all posts to be opted-in to the search, and depending on users to opt-out, would be far more controversial?

Not all. The option is just about public ones anyway. Unlisted and private posts are not searchable. That's why Unlisted and Private options for writing posts exist. Restricting search for PUBLIC posts makes no sense at all.

this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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