Journalists will never stick around this app long term sadly unless it adds quote posting. We desperately need it to communicate effectively, build on each others ideas, and add crucial context to posts. These are things replies simply do not accomplish. Also quote posting or reblogging does not = harassment! Tumblr, for instance, has had the feature since the beginning. We need it here now too 🙏🏻
@taylorlorenz@mastodon.social quote posting is available with alternative server software! I wish more people knew this
@Lxtruong I’m dumb how does this work? I’m on the app and I don’t see a way to do it and everything shows as links there’s not even link previews 😰
Oops uou might not see my example bc you were tagged. It's here https://i.calckey.cloud/notes/994oo646qk
@Lxtruong @taylorlorenz are there native client apps with this functionality?
@PieterPeach@mastodon.social @taylorlorenz@mastodon.social I'm unaware of any. There are other things deliberately unavailable in Mastodon (toot level text searches) that are available in other compatible software as well.
@Lxtruong @taylorlorenz this text level search (outside of your own posts) would presumably require servers to allow scraping and indexing? My understanding this is not consensus behaviour
@Lxtruong @PieterPeach oh wow you can’t even search the text of toots posted on Mastodon? That also seems like a huge issue for journalists seeking to use this platform. I’m sure there are reasons why but dang
@taylorlorenz Remember the history of Mastodon. It was not built in the face of Musk buying twitter. It was built by people who could not be on Twitter safely even when Jack was in charge. Decisions like no text search and no reblogging were in specific responses to the abusive behavior that led Mastodon's creators to do the hard work of setting up an alternative in the first place.
These pre-April 2022 users who still own the majority of large instances and are the active developers of the software did not want a place for Journalists - many would have found the prying and data aggregation journalist do on social media exceedingly distasteful.
unless things change Mastodon will never have the broadcast vibes of Twitter which emphasized views and interactions. This social network emphasizes the building of direct relationships and to use it successfully you need to be ready to spend far more social capital developing trust and reputation then the equivalent Twitter account.
Twitter under Jack Dorsey really catered to journalists and politicians because they brought in lots of views, and it became a great place to not only put out a story, but to develop one as well. Mastodon was designed by people who didn't want their social media interactions on the front page of the New York Times. For that reason, I suspect that journalists, news makers, and politicians will remain on Twitter in spite of Elon Musk. They are to Twitter what live sports has become to cable TV - the one use that a new technology cannot easily disrupt.
@antares @taylorlorenz it would be good if some instances could offer a setting that allows user to opt in to having all their toots indexable by Google and searchable. Would be very useful for technical instances like the one run by @thegradient
@boazbaraktcs Perhaps it would be, but right now such an instance would likely fine itself broadly defederated.
There is history here. A message board called Kiwi Farms developed search tools for the fediverse with the stated intent of finding and harassing LGBT people. Prior to the twitter migration it was probably the most impactful thing to occur in the fediverse. Any instance found to be using Kiwi Farms indexing tools was quickly and aggressively defederated and even instances that federated with those instances were targeted. (Full disclosure: the instance this account uses Qoto.org falls into the latter category and is still on a lot of default block lists)
I'm not saying it will never happen. The project is open source and if there is enough demand someone will write the code. Given the recent history, I would not expect the large legacy instances to change in the near future.
@antares it should definitely IMO be something that users need to opt into, and such an instance would only allow search and indexing of its own toots .
If an instance is mostly for technical content - talking about papers , research results and such - then enabling full text search makes a lot of sense
@boazbaraktcs @antares This is a very good idea.
Instances developed outside the lines of the normal Mastodon format could come with warnings letting users permit/not permit interactions with those particular instances.
@boazbaraktcs @antares Yes. This. I wanted to look up what other people were using for a programming related tool and there’s just no way to do it.
@antares @boazbaraktcs@sigmoid.socialoh, wow. i'm aware of Kiwi Farms and their aggressive harm. This is a great #usecase of how #Mastodon is being built and for whom.
setting up shop here is like marrying into a family—there's history! learn it.
as opposed to star gazing at celebrities on the bird site—and pining for attention and an autograph.
I believe the glitch-soc fork allows an opt-in to search engine indexing.
The reactionary instances should not be able to pressure other instances to be as closed as they want for themselves.
@antares @boazbaraktcs It's entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that the federated platform of the future will not be Mastodon, but something else using ActivityPub, and if so, this will be one of the reasons for that.