Someone came up with “Fediverse search” and folks …
Someone came up with “Fediverse search” and folks were not amused. Even though I’ve opted out of search engine indexation, I can still use Google to search, e.g., site:mastodon.social @[email protected]geekcompass.com
. Nothing online should be considered private.
Some folks would rather not have their toots embedded or otherwise displayed on non-Fediverse sites. Any blog can choose to implement ActivityPub and become a Fediverse site. When more websites move in that direction, the “Fediverse” will pretty much be the web. Quoting, annotating and linking back and forth, under “fair use,” are a key part of the web. Publishing online isn’t the issue. (Certain features of) social media are.
Still, f—k discoverability. And “going viral.” I follow hundreds of web feeds; didn’t need an algorithm, or “Explore” tab, or “federated timeline”—what would that look like, a federated timeline of the entire blogosphere?—to “discover” those. Word of mouth is the way.
Imagine having a section on your site where you’d aggregate and show, in full, others’ blog posts, from all around the web. I wouldn’t do that.