#vanillamastodon — Public Fediverse posts

So #Mastodon is introducing #FullTextSearch with version 4.2.0. With #OptIn per account.

As to be expected, people are going completely ape-shit crazy over it and demand either Eugen Rochko take this decision back once and for all or at least an immediate fork with search completely removed and blocked for all Mastodon instances that have search. They don't even trust the opt-in.



In the meantime, most other #Fediverse projects have had full-text search for years. And they've been full-text search-indexing Mastodon toots as well. #Friendica and #Hubzilla have been continuously full-text search-indexing incoming Mastodon toots as long as since 2016.

Not only has there never been an opt-in switch for that, but there hasn't even been an #OptOut switch. There's no protection against it whatsoever, short of defederating your instance from everything that isn't #VanillaMastodon. Which, by the way, is akin to Whack-a-Mole.

Literally. Nobody. Cared. At all. Ever.

Of course not. Because nobody even knew that.

Most Mastodon users still seem to think the Fediverse is only Mastodon. Most of those who don't still can't imagine that anything out there could have features that Mastodon doesn't have. Even if I tell it straight into their faces, they can't grasp it.

I don't really think that ignorance is bliss in this case...

Remember, everyone: #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse. And whatever feature you could imagine in your wildest dreams that Mastodon has, there's at least one project out there that has this feature already now, and that's federated with Mastodon.

P.S.: Even if Mastodon uses an ActivityPub standard feature for search opt-in, for it does, that doesn't mean that the whole rest of the Fediverse will soon respect it.

The #Fediverse is weird.

Not using #ContentWarnings and writing #AltText with #ImageDescriptions in your very first toot, two minutes after joining Mastodon = so bad it justifies a good scolding.

Being absolutely convinced that the Fediverse is only #Mastodon and nothing but Mastodon six months after joining = perfectly normal and perfectly acceptable.

In fact, not even knowing that the Fediverse is more than #MastodonSocial and the official mobile app three months after joining = still absolutely okay, considering how totally complicated the Fediverse is.

Oh, and: Doing anything that can't be done on Mastodon because #VanillaMastodon lacks the capability, but whatever #NotMastodon project you use can do it with ease = justifies scolding, too, if not out-right blocking. Almost a good thing that if Mastodon can't create something, it can't show it either in most cases.

#MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #NotOnlyMastodon