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   silverwizard (silverwizard@convenient.email)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 02:01:10 JST silverwizard
   I think Fediverse search would be a good thing
   
   I think that fundamentally that argument was ended when the WebIndex was created, and living in a post-WebIndex world basically means that searchability is the way that people approach problems and questions. I like the ability to find old thoughts and I like the ability to find old things. And I think that people who dislike it should have the tools to disable it (robots.txt, nobot, and post-autodeletion). But it would be real nice to remember something from four years ago and search it out of the memory hole.
   
   I think about this in context of like, email. If an inbox decided "I will publish every email sent to me" I think that like, that would be fine. However, if a mail relay did that I would be suspicious as hell.
   
   But I think that most Fediverse accounts act more like inboxes than relays. Obviously, if someone were to setup that email inbox, I would definitely think harder about sending email to it than to my friends. And I think that that change is probably the core of the tension where people worry about the fediverse.
   
   I don't understand the people who dislike a generic search tools - and their arguments have never persuaded me - I don't know what I'm missing.
   • Embed this notice
     hypolite (hypolite@friendica.mrpetovan.com)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 02:21:02 JST hypolite

     in reply to
     @silverwizard The main case against Fediverse-wide search is the emerging practice of name-searching Twitter-wide. This is objectively bad and anything adding friction to search is likely to reduce the likelihood of this behavior on the Fediverse.
   • Embed this notice
     silverwizard (silverwizard@convenient.email)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 02:31:06 JST silverwizard

     in reply to

     • hypolite
     @hypolite Yeah, I see the problems - but workarounds are too easy IMO to make potential abuses the main resistence point, anyone with a few hundred bucks can do the bad thing
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     silverwizard (silverwizard@convenient.email)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 02:31:44 JST silverwizard

     in reply to

     • me
     @me I think the email relay point is the counter argument to that point
   • Embed this notice
     me (me@social.jlamothe.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 02:31:45 JST me

     in reply to
     On top of that, it's an inevitability that someone is eventually going to build these tools whether people like them or not. It's only a matter of time.
     
     When you put something out on the public internet, you can never be certain it's been fully removed. I've cone to make peace with that fact. Whether I like it or not is immaterial.
   • Embed this notice
     hypolite (hypolite@friendica.mrpetovan.com)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 02:40:44 JST hypolite

     in reply to
     @silverwizard I'm not sure if you realize how insignificant the "anyone with a few hundreds bucks" subset of "all users" is. What allowed the practice to emerge was the free and immediate access to network-wide search even without a registered account!
   • Embed this notice
     silverwizard (silverwizard@convenient.email)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 02:49:37 JST silverwizard

     in reply to

     • hypolite
     @hypolite I acknowledge the limitations of that group, it's definitely a mass actor vs a select group, and builds the KiwiFarms problem, not a massive problem
     hypolite likes this.
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     silverwizard (silverwizard@convenient.email)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 06:09:28 JST silverwizard

     in reply to

     • hypolite
     @hypolite That's definitely valid
     
     I feel like defederation is the solution to that though - unless, of course, Mastodon.social existed
     hypolite likes this.
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     hypolite (hypolite@friendica.mrpetovan.com)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 06:09:29 JST hypolite

     in reply to
     @silverwizard Oh, I just stumbled on another emergent behavior contributing to the argument against Fediverse-wide search: the need to use elaborate and varied paraphrases when talking about popular topics (like "Beetkoin" or "Elmo") to avoid being harassed by either bots or stans. These also defeat user-defined filters for the wrong reasons.