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If you've been waiting for full-text #search on #Mastodon, please go to #TootFinder and sign in. The more, the merrier.
https://www.tootfinder.ch/

Thanks to @buercher for building it.

It's opt-in, not opt-out. It respects Mastodon culture and doesn't index accounts that don't sign in.

That means the index might be small if we don't spread the word.

#mastotips #feditips

Tootfinder

www.tootfinder.ch
#mastodon #search #mastotips #feditips #tootfinder @Matthias Bürcher
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to petersuber

Optimistic Skeptic
Optimistic Skeptic
• •
This is great and works like a charm.
After I indexed my username, and it pulled up all of my toots, I copied that URL into Bit.ly and created a shortened link for my profile page. (there was something similar many did on Twitter)
--> https://bit.ly/neadreport_on_mastodon

Thanks, and boosted.

Tootfinder

bit.ly
in reply to Optimistic Skeptic

petersuber
petersuber
• •
That's a nice way to use it.

I'm using it as one more search engine built into my Chrome omnibox. I just type "tf" (for #TootFinder), then a space, and then my keywords. That runs the search directly from Chrome. This is possible because TF gives every search a unique URL incorporating the search terms
#tootfinder
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to petersuber

Optimistic Skeptic
Optimistic Skeptic
• •
Dayum. You just about broke the elephant with that Chrominising!
I need to try that with Vivaldi. :vivaldi_red:
in reply to petersuber

Snap Happy Fox (Kaida)🏳️‍⚧️
Snap Happy Fox (Kaida)🏳️‍⚧️
• •
sounds like a great tool for trolls who otherwise wouldn't know who you were...
in reply to Snap Happy Fox (Kaida)🏳️‍⚧️

petersuber
petersuber
• •
@SnapHappyFox
That's a risk I'll take — while supporting the default in which others don't take that risk. That's why I like opt-in.
@Snap Happy Fox (Kaida)🏳️‍⚧️
in reply to petersuber

gvdr :julia_lang:
gvdr :julia_lang:
• •
Does the search also capture mentions in a toot? If so, isn't that partially forcing an opt-in for accounts you mentioned?
@SnapHappyFox @buercher
@Matthias Bürcher @Snap Happy Fox (Kaida)🏳️‍⚧️
in reply to petersuber

boB Rudis 🇺🇦
boB Rudis 🇺🇦
• •
Hey folks! I did do this b/c I believe the fediverse should be searchable.

I've been asked if this means "can read DMs" and I honestly don't know (I'll never use DMs for truly private comms so I don't care, but others do).
in reply to petersuber

𝕯𝖊𝖒𝖔𝖓
𝕯𝖊𝖒𝖔𝖓
• •
what's ethically wrong with no indexing public information? I feel like this whole "we repect your data" thing is merely marketing when not applied to private data. I wouldn't care but this pattern of not indexing public data has demonstrably and arguably needlesy set back the abilities of the fediverse
in reply to petersuber

Mark Gardner
Mark Gardner
• •
Neat, but a point of design: the gray-on-slightly-darker-gray hint text in the input boxes is not great for my eyes
in reply to petersuber

Baloo Uriza
Baloo Uriza
• •
Hey, there we go...how was that so hard for the other folks?
in reply to petersuber

Fripi
Fripi
• •
nice idea. I do not understand why it needs access to everything though?

This includes private messages and all those sent to only a specific audience. I only want the public ones to be searchable...

Why not just verify it's me and then use the public accessible timeline for the index?
in reply to petersuber

Spring Peach
Spring Peach
• •
@DocCarms
Interesting, but I believe that for search to be acceptable it needs to be on a toot by toot basis. We can manage setting other toot meta data to restrict accessibility. Why not searchability?
@Carmela 🍉🔻
in reply to petersuber

[FWGS]DjBRINE1 :verified_think: :tiasmile:
[FWGS]DjBRINE1 :verified_think: :tiasmile:
• •
would've loved to see a broader Fediverse support as well. Mastodon is cool and all, but I wanted to index my accounts on other services too
in reply to petersuber

happyborg
happyborg
• •
great that search is opt in. Now I think about it, I won't.

As searchers we like to be able to search, so to help that is one reason to opt in.

But what about as being searched? What's the benefit - that anyone can find me or things I toot about quickly 🤔

I'm not sure I want that. I'm good with people finding me more organically and having to follow me and read my stuff if they see value in it.

That mirrors offline community better IMO and that's worth considering.
in reply to petersuber

Daniel Thomas
Daniel Thomas
• •
The permissions request is for read access to "Everything" which feels overkill? Sounds like it might include DMs and stuff. I think this is just for authentication to the opt-in but perhaps a narrower permission is possible?
Unknown parent

Robert von Burg :vegan: :tux:
Robert von Burg :vegan: :tux:
• •
@jwildeboer @glynmoody certainly a good question, but the toots are public anyhow, so does it matter?
@Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: @Glyn Moody
in reply to petersuber

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
Question: just saw the authorisation dialogue and it says read-only access to “everything”. Does that include followers-only and direct messages?

If so, is this a limitation in the granularity of the Mastodon API?

CC @Gargron
@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Aral Balkan

Matthias Bürcher
Matthias Bürcher
• •
@aral @Gargron We are trying to find out. The API doc of Mastodon mentions finer granularity, but the proposed subscopes produce errors.
@Eugen Rochko @Aral Balkan
in reply to petersuber

Philip Loring
Philip Loring
• •
I love to see this kind of organic and ground-up experimentaton with how to build out this platform.

Its such an empowering ecosystem, as opposed to being at the whim of behind-closed-doors, profit-oriented architects. #fediverse #mastodonmigration
#fediverse #mastodonmigration
Unknown parent

Matthias Bürcher
Matthias Bürcher
• •
@jwildeboer @glynmoody it will be when the code is more presentable
@Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: @Glyn Moody
in reply to petersuber

Alex Chaffee
Alex Chaffee
• •
@stargazersmith

i know it’s a proof-of-concept so some features are missing; the one that leaps out at me is that CW’d content is not masked — maybe you should mention that in a message near the search box for now so people are prepared to see potentially personally disturbing stuff in the results
@Larry Smith
in reply to petersuber

Joe Fabisevich :verified:
Joe Fabisevich :verified:
• •
Do you support a ‘from’ operator? I’ve tried a few variants looking for my own posts (after opting in) and couldn’t find them, though searching my own username does give me some random results.
in reply to petersuber

hammancheez
hammancheez
• •
I signed in so I can disappoint exponentially more readers
in reply to petersuber

LalaKroniq
LalaKroniq
• •
Nice! Thank you! I like how after you've indexed yourself it shows you all your toots in a visually pleasing matrix
in reply to petersuber

Bob Wyman
Bob Wyman
• •
#TootFinder provides opt-in full-text search for Mastodon posts. One must explicitly authorize it to index one's posts. I assume that this approach addresses the concerns of those who oppose Mastodon post indexing.

I have authorized the indexing of my posts and I hope you will as well.

https://www.tootfinder.ch/

Tootfinder

www.tootfinder.ch
#tootfinder
in reply to petersuber

Virginicus
Virginicus
• •
I’m in. I don’t post anything to social media that I don’t want public, so it’s no-cost to me.
in reply to petersuber

Joseph Zitt
Joseph Zitt
• •
I'm in. I also would like it to be open source, but I especially like (as is true of much in the Fediverse) that the developer is participating in the discussion, open to improvements, and willing to admit that there are things that he doesn't yet know.
in reply to petersuber

Póló
Póló
• •
Can I get a listing of all the accounts on Mastodon[dot]ie.
They unjustly threw me off the instance and I want to have a list of those I might follow from my account here.
in reply to petersuber

Avi Rappoport (avirr)
Avi Rappoport (avirr)
• •
FYI you may be surprised at the matches. Unlike most search engines, it’s not limited to word matches, it does left prefix matching and fuzzy matching. So short queries like “AI” can find toots about airplanes.

I suggest offering an option for limiting results to word matches
in reply to petersuber

Mitra
Mitra
• •
Good idea - but I have concerns - the app requested read only access to everything - which presumably means private messages as well.

I'm unclear why the app needs any access at all - would have thought the app could have just "Followed" me, then it would get my public toots and could index those.

Am I missing something? i.e. why wouldn't that, less-privacy-invasive, approach would work.
in reply to petersuber

Mitra
Mitra
• •
Reading some of the other comments - it seems that Mastodon is missing a critical feature - the ability to authenticate WITHOUT giving any permissions, i.e. its not giving the app the right to read or write anything, but it is proving to the app that I am who I say I am (or rather that I control the id at the moment I authenticate).
in reply to petersuber

EllenJS
EllenJS
• •
@lauren right after I saw your comment about wishing Mastodon had a decent search function I saw this @petersuber post that I’m replying to that says how to opt into one. I don’t know if it’s good, bad or indifferent functionality, but it’s there.
@petersuber @Lauren Weinstein
in reply to EllenJS

Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein
• •
@EllenJS Useless on that scale. Too many of the major instances are dead set against search, rendering it worse than useless, since it will give skewed results by definition.
@EllenJS
in reply to petersuber

JustME
JustME
• •
i get "invalid mastodon domain" every time i try
Unknown parent

Robert von Burg :vegan: :tux:
Robert von Burg :vegan: :tux:
• •
@jwildeboer @glynmoody usually i would agree, but here they are asking as if they may scrape our public feed... Google doesn't ask if they may scrape my website. I am sure others out there are scraping our public Mastodon feeds without our knowledge anyhow. If i don't want this I shouldn't be on Mastodon anyhow... These are my thoughts #fediverse #Mastodon #Scraping
#mastodon #fediverse #scraping @Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: @Glyn Moody
Unknown parent

Matthias Bürcher
Matthias Bürcher
• •
@jwildeboer @glynmoody It is on GitHub now. See link on wiki
@Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: @Glyn Moody
in reply to petersuber

MegaZone
MegaZone
• •
Search *will* come to the Fediverse, even if some do not like it. It is too useful and desired by too many for it not to happen.

I, for one, would welcome things being searchable.
in reply to petersuber

Peter Sullivan
Peter Sullivan
• •
I actually prefer that my toots be not indexed. Which is why I therefore strongly support this effort, which is opt-in, not opt-out. It’s a very mastodon-y approach to the problem. (Is mastodon-y even a real word? I guess it is now..,)
in reply to petersuber

Ricketson
Ricketson
• •
It may be good to let instance admins opt-out the entire instance for those communities that want to have a little more buffer between them and universal search.
in reply to petersuber

llewelly
llewelly
• •

about a week ago, I put tootfinder in my bio, and I joined the index, and yet, I can't find any of my tweets in tootfinder.ch

I don't know what I did wrong. I've tried re-doing it several different ways, and no change; still none of my toots show up.

in reply to petersuber

Zach Fine
Zach Fine
• •
I joined and applaud the building of it, but I think there's too much friction in the process (not TootFinder's fault). Opt-in to search needs to be a simple checkbox in one's profile in the Mastodon UI.
in reply to petersuber

noodlejetski :verified_gay:
noodlejetski :verified_gay:
• •
another solution is to try #calckey. it's got full text search and quote posts, and it federates with Mastodon and the rest of the gang. it lets you import your social graph and your posts from Mastodon, too.
#calckey
in reply to petersuber

Mark Hughes
Mark Hughes
• •

I understand some here want to search but I don't think you can claim it respects #Mastodon culture because in fact it changes it.

Search changes how discovery works and that is a big shift from a culture of organic, person to person connection and growth towards a Twitter or Facebook culture which maximises growth and reach at the cost of community.

It also makes it all or nothing, when we already have fine grained 'search-ability' when a tooter chooses to use hashtags.

#mastodon
in reply to petersuber

Kevin Russell
Kevin Russell
• •
how many blankets of security does this unwrap?
in reply to Kevin Russell

Christopher
Christopher
• •
Functionally none, since those of us using non-Mastodom services have full text search by default. Bad actors can just use Pleroma or something.
@petersuber@fediscience.org@buercher@tooting.ch
@petersuber @Matthias Bürcher
in reply to Christopher

Kevin Russell
Kevin Russell
• •

@kichae
Sorry missed this,
"Bad actors can just use Pleroma or something."

How do bad actors use pleroma?

@Christopher
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