Full text search has been merged in #Mastodonmain branch, and will be in the next (and final?) 4.2.0 beta 🎉
It is opt-in, so it will take some time to be filled with people content as they enable their profile to be indexed, but this was one of the most wanted Mastodon features for some time.
We plan to deploy it to mastodon.social and mastodon.online in the coming days to have a bit more feedback on it and see how it behaves in the wild.
To opt into your content being searchable, once your instance is upgraded to support this feature, head to the your profile, and the new “Privacy and reach" tag, then tick the "include public posts in search”.
We will try to ensure users know this setting exists, nothing 100% defined yet, but we may add a dismissible banner asking to review your privacy settings page.
Full-text search allows you to search for words in the content of statuses (if your instance has ElasticSearch configured), compared to the current version which only allows searching for hashtags.
In addition, you get a whole lot of search modifiers for advanced search (no UI for those yet):
I’ve now been enjoying #Mastodon for 10 months & am delighted by the thoughtful engagement here. I’m also increasingly interested to learn more about who I’m connecting with in the fediverse.
@Sheril (so called) Australian here. I came across a post and got lost in your wonderful timeline this morning. Thank you for your thoughtful and informative posts!
Thus begins a first for me on two levels, one I will be simultaneously live tweeting, tooting and skeeting along with a movie and two that movie will be Swordfish from 2001, which I have never seen before.
Almost everyone who says "Mastodon didn't work for me" on Bluesky seems to have posted only "me me me" stuff for months (if that) on Mastodon, followed about 10-20 people, never replied to anyone and then gave up because "nobody there, it didn't fly".
It seems there is a big misunderstanding how this free and healthy social media works. We are not here for the easy wins, likes, shares and dopamine spikes. We are here because we accept the fact we are not part of the commercial hype machine. We choose natural engagement over spoiling algorithms, we choose conversation and meaning in our social media. At least that is how I see it.
@rolle
Corporate 'Social' Media
Is a competition space for gaining followers, ego-boosting, #shitposting & self promotion. It is how they are built & designed. A few massively circulated posts, from handful of accounts & a vast sea of ignored posts.
Community #Social#Media
Is a cooperative space for finding friends, learning stuff, supporting each other &having fun. With attention spread between users far more evenly. It is not a social overlords vs serf audience model. #Fedi#Fediverse
I thank each of you from the bottom of my heart, also anyone who takes the time to read my poems
Unfortunately the rhymes are lost in the english translation and so is the rhythm
Who knows german, please read the german
Or help with the translation? 🙏🏼😊
#AltText The rain The rain, it washes everything away, The sorrow and the pain that's there. Standing in the rain, hoping and praying. That washes clean, this gloomy life. The questions an answer find, the rain and tears combine. That a solution will arise, The doubts are now forgiven. That washes clean, the guilt the heavy. The darkness now fades away, the sun is reaching me. That probing questions, that never asked, the answer to which, will now decay. That washes itself clean, What only the rain can wash clean. That questions that weigh down my heart, No longer deny me life. That the future, so uncertain, Will be bathed in the light I miss. That washes clean what torments my heart. Now take me with you, wash me away. Let me forget this terrible place. The mistakes that bind me today in the past they disappear. Since gloomy now my life, I can only give you the darkness in the rain. And yet and yet, I still hope to find the brightness. To fathom with you the friends here, to join the rain with the sun's beauty. Together we can then say there, the rain it washes everything away. Washes everything now infinitely pure, Now I know, with you, my heart is never, never alone.
They learn to trust, they learn to share,
A newfound kinship strong and rare.
In strength they find, in hands they hold,
A warmth that’s brighter than pure gold.
The sun, it rises, breaks the night,
Its golden rays, a wondrous sight.
Through every trial, every plight,
It pushes through, igniting light.
And so it is, in stranger’s face,
A friend emerges, finding place.
Belief in strength, in bonds we weave,
Together, brighter days achieve.
Strangers offering unsolicited advice or derailing conversations should be familiar to all who use social media. In our new #Mastodon for Android update, we’re testing a new feature aimed to curb these behaviours:
@Mastodon Honestly, I feel that if someone doesn't want unsolicited advice, they shouldn't be publishing their thoughts in a public forum. If they're just communicating with a small group of friends (which of course is perfectly reasonable) there are places to do that in a much better way. Here ain't there.
@Mastodon It's good to see that there is genuine intention to continue improving Mastodon. Genuinely curious to see what effect this feature will have.
Realistically, a reminder to be nicer might work on someone replying impulsively, but quite a few people online feel entitled to responding to strangers without a filter to their language or aggression, and it's doubtful that this will have much effect on them.
From a glimpse, there are enough irritated and angry replies to this post alone, about this feature, perceiving it as seemingly something that polices how they use social media, to make one question if it'd stop the same people from responding in an aggressive way.
Beyond that, quite a few people are not aware that their unsolicited advice or comments are a form of microaggression, so they still believe that they are being nice, reminder or not.
I'm gonna second all the other people suggesting that a way to not allow replies, or control who replies, would be a welcome feature that people can opt-in or out from on an individual level, as it overall allows for more control.
Pragmatically, I don't think any of us expects to completely eliminate unwanted replies when posting publicly, but any option to limit them is a good step forward, especially when it comes to making social media more welcoming to minorities and marginalised groups. So it's good seeing this conversation happening.
⚠️ We are planning to release important security fixes for #Mastodon on July 6th, between 13:00 and 15:00 UTC. They will be available for the 4.1, 4.0 and 3.5 versions as well as a nightly release, to make the upgrade as small and painless for everyone as possible. Be ready to upgrade!
#Mastodon forms new 501(c)(3) non-profit entity with new board of directors in the United States to facilitate tax-deductible donations and in-kind support:
We've noticed that a lot of you had some questions about this announcement, so we've collected the most important ones in a new FAQ section on the page above 👆
I have re-read the magnificent article by @kissane, titled "Mastodon is easy and fun except when it isn’t". On Bluesky, she asked those people who had tried/used Mastodon and bounced off, what had led them to slow down or leave.
Couldn’t find people or interests, people didn’t stay
Too confusing, too much work, too intimidating
Too serious, too boring, anti-fun
Complicated high-stakes decisions
"I don’t know if Mastodon can grapple with the complexities of mass scale. Lots of people would prefer it didn’t—staying smaller and lower-profile makes it friendly to amateur experimentation and also a lot safer for people who need to evade various kinds of persecution. But if Mastodon and other fedi projects do take on the mass scale, their developers must consider the needs of people who aren’t already converts. That starts by asking a lot of questions and then listening closely and receptively to the answers you receive."
For many parts I agree. But despite everything, Mastodon/Fediverse is still the best place to be on social media. Let's make this even better. We have the power. #Mastodon#OpenSource#Fediverse#Bluesky#BlueskySocial
@rolle
> Mastodon/Fediverse is still the best place to be on social media. Let's make this even better.
100%. One problem that causes friction for newbies is the expectation that Mastodon can be all things to all people. Somehow we need to convince people who want an InstaGram/TikTok-a-like experience to try PixelFed, or people who want more of a neighbourhood feel to try Hometown, or people who want Quote Posts to try FireFish. The fediverse has so much more to offer than Mastodon.
@wrigleyfield I have over 7000 followers on Twitter and nowadays and posts get barely any comments whatsover. And if so, the trolls...
Here on the contrary, hundreds of comments, lots of boosts... etc. It's like two different worlds.
On my instance and many others like https://universeodon.com there's open text search available. Hashtags are good too. This place works already (at least for me) better than Twitter ever did.
I was looking for a reply in a post earlier this year but then found it's gone. This is kinda a downside, I wish old replies could be re-fetched, never thought it's "impossible to undo".
It could work in a way it would backfill the replies once the post is accessed, but tech-wise I understand if it's not possible.
Question for admins: Are you doing something to circumvent this?
@rolle I completely disabled this function on my instance when I learned the scope of this functionality. I was shocked when I found the real scope in a Github issue. When I configured this, the text your instance shows was not yet there and thus a huge issue because it also wasn't in their docs.
E.g. for bookmarks this is an issue if you want to remember a post for a reason. :)
wife tested positive for covid. It's bad. Online Doc refused to prescribe #Paxlovid citing she's <50yrs. Said LongCovid isn't real and pretty much gaslit the thing.
PCP offices are closed.
CVS w/o prescription requires labwork that we don't have handy.
@upol
I think there are a lot of great people in medicine but they’re trapped in a screwy system that brings out the worst. I don’t have the answer to fix it. There are so many entrenched special interests.
Been trying this out secretly for the past few weeks — a "catch-up" timeline page. Did whole bunch of iterations, where I myself is the guinea pig, but this time reaching a point where I just got to share it out in the public.
NOT final design, still very experimental, only on my local machine
Instead of algo timeline, this is focused on data-grid-like UI for configuring exactly what I want to see.
This honestly could be another full-fledged app/client by itself 🫠
#Mastodon bringt "Quote Posts" ab Version 4.4 (aktuell ist 4.3). Wir dürfen gespannt sein, ob dieses zum teil umstrittene Feature irgendwas an der Kultur hier ändert. Vermutlich hängt das maßgeblich davon ab, wie es im Detail implementiert ist.
@mina@marquito@2ndStar@allgeier@RAlpenstern
Der Code war eine Variante des Codes, mit dem wir das Root-Passwort eines Sysadmins knacken wollten, um ihm zu zeigen, dass es zu schwach war. (Einer von uns hatte diesem Sysadmin ein kurz zuvor eine Fehlkonfiguration gemeldet, die es jedem Userr weltweit erlaubt hätte, auf seinen Kisten root zu werden…)
Long story short: Wir mussten dann einen Brief schreiben, dass wir das nie wieder tun würden oder so. #WhiteHat
Hello #Mastodon, I am seeking comments from the community to include in my next newsletter about #Google's change in their privacy policy. (They now say that anything you post online will be used to train their AI models.)
I am especially interested of thoughts from #writers and #artists.
How do you feel about this move? What do you think about placing your content behind a wall to protect it? And will this change how you post online in the future?
Note to #Tech folks - don't have to remind me that #Google has been scraping and collecting data since forever. I was there when the Internet was born and I work in tech. I KNOW 😆
It would help to know, however, what the layperson can do to protect their #privacy in practical ways.
Roll over and give up is not a handy tip 😘
@liztai - It simply makes me think of the statement by former Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy in regards to the internet privacy; "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it!"
Google will do whatever they want to do regardless, the only change here is the admission, IMHO.
New #Mastodon merch just dropped! Responsibly sourced cotton t-shirts, enamel pins, mugs, and vinyl stickers with cute, exclusive designs! Get them while they're hot and support the development of Mastodon!
@Mastodon Any chance for a EU based merchant? Using a merchant on a tiny island that chose to globally isolate itself and no having to charge everyone insane delivery fees and import taxes isnt great :(
@selzero It wasn't the pundit class or randos arguing or ops to get stuff trending that made the dead bird such a source, although in the presence of its algorithm, those were arguably important ingredients.
It was the extensiveness of the social graph, ability of users to recognize where someone had relevant expertise that mainstream discourse was excluding and RT it, ability to quickly reply/QRT and debunk if mistake was made, etc. that made it such a source.
I don't think it will happen within Mastodon first. I think Threads will bring it to Mastodon via ActivityPub federation simply because the media will start posting to Threads without arm wrangling
I hope the powers that be see the importance of independent federation ownership & leave Threads or whatever & setup their own instances & own it
Mastodon, hopefully, or WordPress, will be their infrastructure of choice
Onpa ilahduttavaa nähdä, että Twit...eikun siis X:n puolelta on siirtynyt paljon porukkaa tänne Mastodoniin. Lämpimästi tervetuloa! Meitä on täällä paljon. Täällä ei ole suosittelualgoritmeja, mainoksia tai tietojenkalasteluominaisuuksia, jotka oppisivat tykkäilyistäsi tai käytöksestäsi, joten joudut näkemään hieman vaivaa alkuun. Mutta se on hauskaa!
Näin pääset alkuun:
Seuraa paljon porukkaa. Itse suosittelen, että seuraat kaikkia vähänkin kiinnostavia niin saat virrastasi eloisan. Karsit pois sitten myöhemmin niitä, jotka eivät istukaan virtaasi. Kasaamaltani suomalaisten listalta saat heti noin 400 ihmistä tuotua seurattaviisi: https://mementomori.social/suomalaiset-mastodon-kayttajat/
Postaile juttuja matalalla kynnyksellä ja käytä paljon hashtageja.
Muista kuvien ja videoiden alt-tekstit (etenkin, jos kuvassa on tekstiä), ne auttavat sokeita hahmottamaan mitä kuvissa on. Pakollista tämä tietenkään ei ole, saat käyttää Mastodonia miten haluat instanssisi sääntösi puitteissa.
Asenna app. Mastodonia voi käyttää monin eri tavoin, mm. Chrome-selaimella puhelimessasi tai asentamalla sovelluksen. Hyviä appeja Androidille ovat mm. Moshidon, Megadolon ja Tusky. iPhonelle loistavia ovat esim. Mona, Ice Cubes, Ivory tai Mammoth.
Kasaa käyttäjiä listoihin. Itselläni mm. Suomalaiset ja Favs. Näiden avulla isommasta seuraajamäärästä voi karsia itselleen ne tietyt, joita seuraa tiukemmin. Täällä ei tosiaan ole mitään tarjoiltuna, joten tällä tavoin on helppo kehittää "omia algoritmeja".
Jos jatko-optimointi kiinnostaa Mastodonille löytyy läjäpäin erilaisia työkaluja, jopa se Twitteristä tuttu rinkula jossa on oma kupla. Olen kasannut työkaluja tänne: https://mementomori.social/the-mastodon-list
Toivottavasti nautit Mastodonin käytöstä yhtä paljon kuin me muutkin. Mastodonissa parasta on sen "terveellisyys", reaaliaikaisuus, helppous, nopeus ja se että se kehittyy koko ajan. Esim. muokkaustoiminto tuli tammikuussa 2023 ja hashtagit päivityksen loppuun ja laajempi haku elokuussa 2023.
So - 'Guppe Groups' is a bot service where any time you tag one of their bot accounts in a post, it automatically 'boosts' that post so everyone who follows the bot will see it.
It's clever.
There's an index of the most active ones here https://a.gup.pe/ but if you look up the name of an @ ______ @ a.gup.pe in the search, it will make a new one automatically if it doesn't exist, which you can then follow and tag in posts.
So - for instance, if I were to tag one of my posts with #MarcoHietala#Nightwish#Tarot#ILikeOldPeopleMetal - the people on this server would see it, as would anyone who is on a server where somebody follows me.
But if I tag @ Nightwish @ a.gup.pe and @Tarot @ a.gup.pe - then anybody who has followed those groups will see my post in their timeline, regardless of what server they're on.
If you check my profile and look at who I follow, you'll see I follow a bunch of groups, many of which are not very active, and a couple of which don't have any posts.
I think a lot of people don't know about the groups.
@Em0nM4stodon Not only are people kinder, they're smarter, they're well read, snappy dressers, good cooks, oh such a very handsome lot you are (all genders)
@Em0nM4stodon similar to what Yellow Flag said, but i appreciate how mastodon websites only load what is actually required to function as a social media unlike twitter.
there are no ads or trackers that do unnecessary requests that cost data and take up cpu.
there are no ads that force you to load high quality images for stuff that you're not even interested in.
also i like the accessibility features.
not because i am blind, but because i sometimes don't understand what i am looking at so i can hover over the image and it tells me for example what the software in the screenshot is called
though there is one gripe that i have about it.
unlike twitter, you specifically need to click the reply button even if you're viewing the post directly
In the last few weeks, I have been trying to organise the #Mastodon development work, so our (very small!) resources are used efficiently. This led us to a tentative roadmap for Mastodon 4.3, with a (very optimistic) release date before Christmas.
Notify users when relationships (follows, followers) are severed, due to a server block, display the list of impacted relationships, and have a button to restore them if the remote server is unblocked
Improve account recommendations, to help users find relevant accounts to follow
Redesign all e-mails, add a few onboarding e-mails to help getting on board with Mastodon, and send an (optional) weekly digest e-mail
If you want to help and are a developer (Ruby and/or Javascript), you can head to our Github repository and have a look at some issues, or can ping me if you want guidance on what is available to contributors.
And if you are not a developer, you can donate to the project (https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors), so we can hire more people to work on Mastodon full-time and be implement new features faster!
It's absolutely insane how #Mastodon DDoS'es sites when a link is mentioned. Every time I mention one of my blog links in a post, thousands of sites seem to hit the server, knocking out email for the duration, and there's absolutely NOTHING on those pages for them to fetch. No images, nothing. What an awful design.
#Mastodon 4.2 is rolling out across the social web! On our quest to make Mastodon more delightful and easy to use, we've overhauled search, sign-ups, cross-server interactions and a whole lot more:
@Mastodon Thanks for this update! The overhaul of the search function is fantastic. I noticed recently that indeed the search function now operates on the bio too, which is super useful to find more people to follow. Keep up the good work!
Loving accessibility things such as bigger link previews, padded out context menus, focus change indication, and working thread indication (consequent nested replies still look disconnected from parent, though). Also, collapsed closure hashtags are bae - assumption that hashtags in the end of post are meant for better discoverability (as opposed to something we would like to consciously read) is always the correct one and I'm glad it's taken care of. #Mastodon is a maître of microblogging, so I hope more similar platforms take this into consideration now that it's a thing out of beta.
Hello #Mastodon! I am making the jump from X to here. Too many of my #science and #medicine buddies left X. If you switched from X, how do you like it here? #introductions
Well this thread went absolutely nuts. Thanks to everyone who tested things out! I’ll have to write an update or a follow-up post, but after a way-too-late-night hacking session, my implementation now supports:
• Better configuration options
• More reusable OP/verified badging
• Link cards
• Spoilers/content warnings
Unfortunately, it appears to be an intentional, undocumented limit for unauthenticated API calls to the context endpoint… however, including an authentication token would require me making people sign in to view more comments, or leaking a token that would enable people to read my private statuses.
Das wär schön. Dir wünsche ich eine ruhige Nacht (nicht wie mit mir, als ich mal mit Lungenentzündung im Krankenhaus lag, mit Antibiotika vollgepumpt und dann plötzlich aufgewacht bin, weil ich völlig ausgelaufen war). Da war mir sowas unangenehm gegenüber der Nachtschwester, kannst du dir nicht vorstellen.
