Mastodon 4.2 released, with (opt-in) search, and UX improvements
Mastodon 4.2 released, with (opt-in) search, and UX improvements
In this massive update we've added search and removed friction. What's not to love?
Lots of small improvements across the user experience, and opt-in search, make this an important release.
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?
@woelkchen @andypiper Consider it a compromise, given how many people were dead set against *any* search.
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.
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.
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 🤷♀️
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.
Is it opt-out for performance reasons? If it was opt-in, maybe large instances will crumble.
Anyway, this is a wild guess.
You need to opt-in for your posts to show up in the new full-text search.
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.
There's also a really nice deep dive into the updates here.
This looks like a really nice release, loads of polish
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.
Hopefully search isn't straight up broken and non functional anymore.
You love to see it.
I love Mastadon. :D
It really needs to be opt-out, but this is a good start.
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.
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.