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Should developers build search engines for the fediverse that reflect current community standards?

Erin Kissane

@evan Honestly? Without a series of highly structured and really well moderated conversations, I don’t think “community standards” will ever be clear enough to allow search to happen without big defed schisms.

But also an unknowable proportion of the fediverse is deeply committed to resisting not just any possible search, but any increase in legibility so schisms probably gonna schis either way, which is fine.

@evan (And no judgment on anyone for taking the zero-search position.)

@kissane @evan If all fediverse posts become easily searchable, I'll probably go back to only saying innocuous things and making random jokes. I don't want to spend days of my life dealing with drive-by attacks from people who don't even follow me.

@charliejane @evan Yeah, I would definitely move to an instance that declined to participate, assuming that remained possible. Full text forever search is probably coming anyway but I hate it.

But the blow-up yesterday over the (un)acceptability of *private* search of one’s own timeline (not everything, just the posts you saw but maybe forgot to bookmark) drove home for me that big-search aversion is the centrist position here.

@kissane yeah, I would be disappointed with that result. I think there is a concept of search on the fediverse that is very humane. It would be great if it became the default for how we think of social search.

If the people who advocate for those constraints retreat to a defed fortress, I think that's a lost opportunity.