Mastodon's Next Major Release Enables Full-Text Search (wedistribute.org)
from deadsuperhero@lemmy.ml to fediverse@lemmy.ml on 30 Aug 2023 22:20
https://lemmy.ml/post/4160230

It’s hard not to overstate how much of a big deal it is that Mastodon is adopting this kind of search functionality. Mastodon still makes up a vast portion of the Fediverse.

While other platforms have supported this for way longer, having buy-in by the biggest player in the space will probably have a huge effect on standard expectations moving forward.

#fediverse

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sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf on 30 Aug 2023 22:21 next collapse

Boo!

I liked when people had to put effort in and you could discuss things without coming up in searches.

electrosphere@lemmy.ml on 30 Aug 2023 22:39 next collapse

If you don’t want to come up in searches don’t check the box in your profile that says “I want to come up in searches”.

ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 31 Aug 2023 01:55 next collapse

That was never a thing on the fediverse… Search has been part of it since the beginning, just not on Mastodon

jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de on 31 Aug 2023 05:02 collapse

It’s opt-in (as in by default you are not going to show up on any search)

doctorcherry@lemmy.ml on 31 Aug 2023 08:02 collapse

Is that on new accounts too?

fisco@lemmy.ml on 30 Aug 2023 22:26 next collapse

Kowtowed to the twitter crowd 👎🏼

deadsuperhero@lemmy.ml on 30 Aug 2023 22:42 next collapse

Did they, though? A bunch of other Fediverse platforms have supported this for literally years, to the point that Mastodon was the butt of jokes for breaking basic search functionality.

Having standard search that just works is a huge deal, and helps solve against the decentralized content discovery problem.

lolgcat@lemmy.ml on 31 Aug 2023 02:13 collapse

Not to mention, it’s opt-in by default.

Solarius@lemmy.sdf.org on 31 Aug 2023 00:47 next collapse

Seems like some of you guys want a secret club and not a proper forum/platform people use in a meaningful way.

Trekman10@sh.itjust.works on 31 Aug 2023 05:31 collapse

There is absolutely a segment of Mastodon users who behave like they do, and tbh I think there should always be small instances, but i also think this will be a great improvement.

ashtrix@lemmy.ca on 31 Aug 2023 00:50 collapse

It’s completely opt in. Don’t do anything and your posts won’t be searched

otter@lemmy.ca on 30 Aug 2023 22:43 next collapse

I like it :) Should make it easier for people to use.

Microw@lemm.ee on 31 Aug 2023 00:58 next collapse

Let’s see how many servers actually implement ElastiSearch. It’s kinda resources-heavy.

deadsuperhero@lemmy.ml on 31 Aug 2023 02:06 next collapse

Yeah, I feel like they’d probably get better mileage with something like Meilisearch, which is what Firefish uses for search.

cannot@lemmy.ml on 31 Aug 2023 14:16 collapse

It also adds to the deployment complexity even more. Just from memory, to run Mastodon you need:

  • any number of Rails web servers (horizontally scalable)
  • any number of Sidekiq worker processes (horizontally scalable)
  • a PostgreSQL database for persistent storage (vertically scalable modulo sharding)
  • a Redis server for caching and Sidekiq (vertically scalable modulo sharding)
  • a Elasticsearch server for full text search (vertically scalable modulo sharding)

So this is at least 5 different server processes to manage, In reality for almost all deployments, Redis and Elasticsearch are unnecessary; the database can be used for jobs and full text search. Further, it could even be SQLite for all but large instances.

The deployment story for Mastodon is a nightmare and a substitute like Pleroma or even better something in Rust is necessary.

coco@lemmy.world on 31 Aug 2023 01:05 next collapse

And no corporate publicity too

StoicLime@lemm.ee on 31 Aug 2023 03:14 collapse

Finally, Mastodon will be using be usable for me.