Mastodon Engineering has announced a new network-wide effort to create a framework for service providers offering a variety of capabilities.

Earlier this month, the Mastodon project announced a new initiative funded by NGI Search: Fediverse Discovery Providers! The goal is to build a resource framework for different kinds of services that can work with potentially any instance or platform.

  • SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    20·
    1 month ago

    It can be hard to find fediverse instances and content inside of them. They are working to make things easier to search for on Mastadon. With a little work it could be used with (and between) many things on the fediverse!

    • Sean Tilley@lemmy.mlOPMEnglish
      15·
      1 month ago

      Basically, this. In layman’s terms: finding the good stuff on a decentralized network is hard, because not everybody or everything is all in one place. Some tools can help make the experience suck less, but it’s a really hard problem that has lingered on for years.

      This proposal is basically a team-up to develop the necessary plumbing so that services, such as search providers or distribution networks, can be easily used by anybody on the network, regardless of whether they’re on Mastodon, Lemmy, or something else.

      There’s a few interesting applications here that go beyond just finding people, showing trending stuff, or providing an index of stuff. Some of this could be used for moderation tooling for admins, or custom feeds for users, or a directory of things to review. If the existing projects trying to solve all these problems came together, it might make a lot of things way easier.

    • delirious_owl@discuss.online
      7·
      1 month ago

      Does that mean cross instance search? I think Mastodon was opposed to even implementing this, and it is a ridiculous position