Author of Mastinator here which was linked in the article. Also its back online, so if you want to start testing your implementation it should work for you. I will be adding more functionality as I go.
While search is a problem, I think the bigger problem with the fediverse is expectations. People expect that their "follower" only posts are only shown to their followers. However you can get them anyway through so many other ways, its literally ludicrous that people expect anything they post to only be delivered to their followers. Boosting posts within Mastodon transmits them to federated servers, and this is by design.
My point has always been that if you play in a federated system, where you literally distribute your posts to anyone who requests them, you have to accept once it leaves your server you have lost all control. To then complain someone is getting that post is naive. That's the federated system working as intended.
If you don't want it public, don't distributed it via a public system.
I don't know if people were told otherwise, but they seem to be under the impression their content is fully under their control in the fediverse, when it is far from the case. Deletes/Edits of content are "should" in the spec, meaning yes people should do it, they are under no obligation to do so.
The only reaction the fediverse has to anyone they dislike is to block, and in some cases harass people till they leave. That wont work long term, and it isn't working now. Despite being blocked by hundreds of instances Mastinator is still getting thousands of posts an hour delivered to it, including posts from instances that blocked it because someone who is federated with those instances has not blocked mastinator and someone boosted it.
The current "elders" of the fediverse want to keep their behaviors and cultures. Which is fine. They should do so by having their own allow-listed federation, not accepting any follow request, or totally de-federating. They should not be bullying others into accepting their behavior. Not only does it not work now, its really not going to work once Tumblr, Flickr and others start integrating, as they will have enough people on that they will be the majority and they will make the rules.
This quote from Eugen is about CWs, but I think it applies here too:
“… It's a decentralized network that doesn't belong to any one party, so by definition there is no single culture on it. Different corners have different expectations and customs.” - https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/109323056922301691
While search is a problem, I think the bigger problem with the fediverse is expectations. People expect that their "follower" only posts are only shown to their followers. However you can get them anyway through so many other ways, its literally ludicrous that people expect anything they post to only be delivered to their followers. Boosting posts within Mastodon transmits them to federated servers, and this is by design.
My point has always been that if you play in a federated system, where you literally distribute your posts to anyone who requests them, you have to accept once it leaves your server you have lost all control. To then complain someone is getting that post is naive. That's the federated system working as intended.
If you don't want it public, don't distributed it via a public system.
I don't know if people were told otherwise, but they seem to be under the impression their content is fully under their control in the fediverse, when it is far from the case. Deletes/Edits of content are "should" in the spec, meaning yes people should do it, they are under no obligation to do so.
The only reaction the fediverse has to anyone they dislike is to block, and in some cases harass people till they leave. That wont work long term, and it isn't working now. Despite being blocked by hundreds of instances Mastinator is still getting thousands of posts an hour delivered to it, including posts from instances that blocked it because someone who is federated with those instances has not blocked mastinator and someone boosted it.
The current "elders" of the fediverse want to keep their behaviors and cultures. Which is fine. They should do so by having their own allow-listed federation, not accepting any follow request, or totally de-federating. They should not be bullying others into accepting their behavior. Not only does it not work now, its really not going to work once Tumblr, Flickr and others start integrating, as they will have enough people on that they will be the majority and they will make the rules.