Hey any journalists on here plz turn your public post indexing on, because most of you haven't and thats why people looking for public information cant find you.
Go to settings > public profile > privacy and reach, select "include public posts in search results"
Not all the fedi wants to be a public space, and thats fine, but some parts should be right now.
Also, consider allowing #TootFinder to make your public posts globally searchable. I think it is a good thing to do, if you want to make information available to the public.
It's painless:
1️⃣ Include one of the keywords "searchable", " tootfinder", or "tfr" in your profile to express consent
2️⃣ Tell TootFinder to start indexing here: https://tootfinder.ch/join.php
(Just remove the keyword if you want to opt out again.)
@marcel@jonny Hope this becomes unnecessary in the future, after all the new indexing option should make the search very much usable already. Or is tootfinder somehow special? 🤔
@marcel@Natanox@jonny Assuming you read it while browsing Mastodon, you don't need to remember it using the built-in search either. As long as your post reaches the other instance (which it will on any moderately sized one), it can be found through anyone searching it.
It's true that you won't reach the small instances most likely however, but I suspect people on small instances know how to find things they want.
So, it's not everything I read, I need to have interacted with it (or vice versa). But indeed, a lot is now covered with the built-in search (which wasn't the case when #Tootfinder started).
Going with the current docs and the "public statuses from account that opted into appearing in search results" bullet point: Is this for all accounts, or just local accounts? If the former: How is the "search opt-in" flag communicated to other instances? As part of the profile information?
@marcel@mattswift It applies to any account (local or remote), and yes, it's part of the profile. Also, profiles that have opted-in to search are polled more frequently for updates, in case the user has opted back out of search (indicating the remote server should remove that account from its search index)
Unfortunately, discoverability w #Mastodon servers is so bad that you can click on a users busy profile and it may appear empty "for reasons". This happens a lot.
And there's nothing to suggest new people to follow based on existing activity and follows.
This paradigm hasn't even figured out a decent way to provide URL links to content. I still end up on other M. websites (where I don't reside) when I click on links to toots. How does a news website even cope with that, when they consider adding "share on fedi" icons to their own pages?
@jonny That said, please also get used to public exposure features as being an opt-in experience outside of the commercial web. This works to your advantage, letting people opt-in reduces the clutter of results when searching, improving search.
@jonny I think that indexing should probably have a setting at the instance level, that way instances can have it default on. For example a journalism instance could have it on by default for new sign ups. People could still toggle it off and on individually, but if you make it a default on for some instances, I think we'd see a lot more usage
Someone on here told me that if any of it is searchable then all of it is even if some people don't want their posts searchable. Imo, mastodon isn't the place for secret communication, but here we are.
@jonny@futurebird i can't keep track of all the settings, social media sites, lists hastags how to port ppl i follow... i'm tired. i should just find a city instead of social media
@jonny is this setting incorporated into onboarding yet? Most people aren’t going to go into their settings and poke around, so the discoverability of this is basically zero
@feditips@jonny this is a reason why people say mastodon is too complicated. If I wanted to log in to a website, I wouldn't have installed an app. Then add on servers not upgrading as an extra layer of awkward. 🙁
I understand the frustration, but think this is a case of a "least worst" solution?
Being on a centralised social network is simpler because you have no options. If the person running the network does something bad (as we can see now with Musk on Twitter) then you just have to accept it.
The range of options on here means it does get more complicated sometimes, but it also keeps you safe from Musk-type scenarios because you can switch servers or apps if something bad happens.
@feditips@jonny probably, but still frustrating. Is there a list of servers that pledge to stay up to date? A list of apps that will expose all settings?
@feditips@jonny@admin@moshidon sure, that helps me (thanks all you lovely people) but are there no general sources for this info yet, for users less expert than you and less mouthy than me?
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