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@fribbledom Problem for me, coming from Twitter: "Where are my existing friends here on Mastodon?"

My existing friends: "I'm on BlueSky."

Me: "Got an invite?"

Discoverability is an issue on Mastodon. I completely understand it was originally created by people who don't want to be discovered *by default*, but hey, could we at least opt-in for discovery, somehow?

@admin

Opt-in to what? Which Twitter features make you more discoverable?

@fribbledom Opt-in to search, or to a directory. On Twitter, when someone searches for my name, they find me. I completely understand this is because Twitter is centralized. Of course. But couldn't there be some search function for the Fediverse, please? With opt-in and immediate deletion upon request?

muesli

@admin

Both exist on Mastodon and the directory is opt-in indeed. Running ElasticSearch on your instance can be pretty painful, but that's the nature of search indexes, I guess.

@fribbledom Maybe I missed something. I thought this was the only capability I get with Elasticsearch on Mastodon:

> Mastodon **supports full-text search** when Elasticsearch is available. Mastodon's full-text search allows logged in users to find results from their own statuses, their mentions, their favourites, and their bookmarks.

docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/op

But can a user who doesn't know on which server I live find me here?

docs.joinmastodon.orgFull-text search - Mastodon documentationSetting up Elasticsearch to search for statuses authored, favourited, or mentioned in.