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Written by Mastodon Engineering on 2024-09-12 at 14:29

We are excited to launch a new project that will help small and medium-sized fediverse servers and their users have better access to search and discovery through the use of pluggable Fediverse Discovery Providers, supported by a grant from @EC_NGI. See our new dedicated website for details:

https://fediscovery.org/

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Descendants

Written by Lö(h)we 🤘 on 2024-09-12 at 14:31

@MastodonEngineering @EC_NGI great idea, looking forward to this

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Written by dada on 2024-09-12 at 14:32

@MastodonEngineering This is pretty cool !

@EC_NGI

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Written by :PUA: Shlee fucked around and on 2024-09-12 at 14:37

@MastodonEngineering @EC_NGI I for one welcome our new universal search pluggable providers!

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Written by ChiefGyk3D on 2024-09-12 at 14:40

@MastodonEngineering @EC_NGI this is pretty cool, and means it will be even easier to use Mastodon and such over time. As a small server for just me and a few friends this will be fantastic. I am already pretty well federated but this will make it by far easier in the future.

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Written by 🧿🪬🍄🌈🎮💻🚲🥓🎃💀🏴🛻🇺🇸 on 2024-09-13 at 02:26

@chiefgyk3d what does this do?

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Written by ChiefGyk3D on 2024-09-13 at 03:03

@schizanon allow us to eventually have better search and discovery for smaller instances on the fediverse such as my privately run Mastodon server.

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Written by 🧿🪬🍄🌈🎮💻🚲🥓🎃💀🏴🛻🇺🇸 on 2024-09-13 at 03:07

@chiefgyk3d so they say, but how does that work? As I understand it, your instance can delegate search to another instance instead of having to manage the index yourself? What if the results come from instances you don't federate with, or have fediblocked? What if there's CSAM or something in the results?

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Written by ChiefGyk3D on 2024-09-13 at 13:18

@schizanon it’s all opt in, and I’m sure they will be blocked if you defederate from them as well. It’s pretty well explained from the concept in the document.

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Written by Jasdemi :fediverse: on 2024-09-12 at 14:57

@MastodonEngineering @EC_NGI This is gonna be great for single user instances.

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Written by C.W. Smith on 2024-09-12 at 15:22

@jasdemi

@MastodonEngineering @EC_NGI

It will definitely make running a single user instance a bit easier from scratch.

Concidering I need to think up how I want to do community features on a few sites it maybe help a lot there as well.

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Written by 🧿🪬🍄🌈🎮💻🚲🥓🎃💀🏴🛻🇺🇸 on 2024-09-13 at 02:27

@CWSmith what does this do?

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Written by C.W. Smith on 2024-09-13 at 02:46

@schizanon

Looks like it will allow for a plugin ecosystem for search and search providers in a federated system. Making it easier to find people through search as opposed to going through instances and searching separately.

It's optional as well so.

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Written by 🧿🪬🍄🌈🎮💻🚲🥓🎃💀🏴🛻🇺🇸 on 2024-09-13 at 03:03

@CWSmith so your small instance can use someone else's search index? that seems useful. Elastic search is a beast

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Written by Wysteria on 2024-09-12 at 15:10

@MastodonEngineering @EC_NGI Is this meant to supplant relays?

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Written by André Menrath on 2024-09-12 at 15:26

@wysteriary @MastodonEngineering @EC_NGI There are key differences between relays and a generic search provider like proposed here. I think pointing those out is crucial. I hope that a flow graph of a draft, maybe including a direct comparison, will be available soon. I discussed this quite some time with the Mastodon guys at #FOSDEM and it was not easy for me to get the point.

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Written by Andy Piper on 2024-09-12 at 16:21

@wysteriary @MastodonEngineering @EC_NGI it may end up somewhat similar to a relay - we are in definition phase. It is not the intent and it may have other requirements.

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Written by katzenberger on 2024-09-12 at 15:31

@MastodonEngineering

Despite this being promoted as supporting multiple "discovery providers", the text says »This will specify how an instance will “feed” content to a discovery provider to index. And how a discovery provider can be queried to actually search and discover content.«

Nothing is being said about why there would ever be a need for a more than a few big providers, once it is established that the big ones "work". As usual, centralization is looming here, by a few corps "generously" offering high-speed "discovery" for "free".

Also, nothing is said about providers sharing results of the indexing, to enable fediverse-wide search - instead, the proposal almost inevitably points to few providers that everybody needs to feed if they want posts to be found.

"Hope" will not change that hence just saying »We want to specify how a discovery provider works and interfaces with a Fediverse server instance. We hope to inspire several competing implementations of the specification.« does not make much sense.

Nothing is said about who outside of the Fediverse gets to query a provider, or to process the data that has been extracted from a fediverse server feed - and for which purposes. It's even expressly mentioned that »These “providers” might serve other purposes than just search and discovery«

»The protocols and implementations will respect user privacy«, but the text only offers "shoulds":

More privacy after the first implementation is out? And no: With Mastodon gGmbH being the driver of this, and with the current wording, we can not "rest assured".

@EC_NGI

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Written by ophiocephalic 🐍 on 2024-09-12 at 15:55

@katzenberger

"Nothing is said about who outside of the Fediverse gets to query a provider, or to process the data that has been extracted from a fediverse server feed - and for which purposes."

The fact that the referenced passage links to a blog post about third-party data collection and algorithmic contraband media detection might provide a clue

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Written by katzenberger on 2024-09-12 at 16:01

@ophiocephalic

Another clue there: »Why external providers?

As it stands, scaling a Mastodon instance is hard, as the operators need to form a moderation team with 24/7 availability and good reaction times, learn about all the specific vectors for abuse and common issues, design guidelines and more.«

Their problem is "scaling". Self-inflicted pain from running behemoth servers that are counter to the core idea of the Fediverse, and from deliberately tilting the Mastodon "joining" process so that their own behemoth keeps growing.

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Written by ophiocephalic 🐍 on 2024-09-12 at 16:13

@katzenberger

Exactly. The "trust and safety" proposal in the older post is effectively for mastodon.social. So it's rather curious that it's being pointed at in a different proposal which is seemingly about improving search and discovery for smaller instances

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Written by ophiocephalic 🐍 on 2024-09-12 at 15:38

@MastodonEngineering @EC_NGI

"These providers might serve other purposes than just search and discovery" - This passage links to @renchap blog post on "trust & safety". Does this mean this will be a mechanism for backend third-party data collection and algorithmic surveillance?

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Written by Chris Wood on 2024-09-12 at 16:03

@MastodonEngineering @EC_NGI perfect! I think this will really help new users find their crowd - especially those who use social media to share their specific skills, products or services and are looking to network with a broad range of people.

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