A project exploring better search and discovery on the Fediverse as an optional, decentralized and pluggable service.

Via Alex Schroeder

The OpenSearch description format can be used to describe the web interface of a search engine. This allows a website to describe a search engine for itself, so that a browser or other client application can use that search engine. OpenSearch is supported by (at least) Firefox, Edge, Safari, and Chrome. (See Reference Material for links to other browsers' documentation.)

Flancian recommended me this tech. I might want to implement it for Betula, maybe. Gotta investigate.

The way to improve search is not to mimic Google, but instead to build boutique search engines that index, curate, and organize things in new ways.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is killing the web. Bots are writing text for other bots to read, wasting electricity and contributing to our downfall. The faster this bubble bursts, the better. I’m intent on helping it into the abyss. This is my Butlerian Jihad.

So what’s the alternative?

Link aggregators that allow people voting, with federation to allow for different communities to form, and moderation to prevent vandalism, hate-speech, spam and trolls. And then search there.

This compressed JSON file (better than XML, right?) would be a well-known path for every site, like “/.well-known/index.json.xz”. It lists all the pages on your domain, and their keywords.