Some instances on the Fediverse offer full-text search of statuses (not just self-authored ones), and I'm wondering how to deal with that. I'm tempted to block every instance doing so, because the current expectation of our users is that their statuses will not be full-text searchable by strangers.

Opinions? What should we do with instances offering full-text search for all statuses? #mastoadmin

@rixx Why is that the expectation of chaos.social users?

I'd assume that anything I post on the internet will be able to be found via some search engine, does Mastodon provide some protection against that?

@christianbundy

No protection, in fact the feature is built into mastodon, its just up to the admin if they want to turn it on locally or not.

@rixx

@freemo Could you elaborate where the feature of full-text search for all statuses is a part of Mastodon? The documentation states that their FTS integration supports only logged-in users searching for statuses from their own posts, mentions, and favs. docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/op

That's noticeably differnt from being able to FTS all users' statuses, hence the consideration.

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@rixx Where do you see it say in that text that it only works for your own posts?

We enable full text searched on QOTO, we do so using the guide you linked (and I linked) above. We do nothing special beyond that.

But I can clearly search through posts other than my own (I just tried), but I am limited to search only for posts I have permission to see, and yes I do need to be logged in.

So seems you just have the feature mistaken. It does, in fact, allow you to search posts of other users.

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@freemo Please refer to the documentation you linked. If you are only using this feature, it's misrepresented in how it's portrayed by and about your instance, and most of the people protesting your instance could have been avoided by a clearer statement.

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