A lens for Kbin / Lemmy instances (or ActivityPub in general)

Nankeru

Tried this, the results are very bad.
It shows me some random mod-logs and weird links, nothing relevant I search for (posts or communities).

My custom lens with just 10 URLs added (since we cannot add more) show way better results - but still can be greatly improved.

URLs used:
kbin.social, fedia.io, readit.buzz, lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, beehaw.org, feddit.de, sh.itjust.works, lemmy.one, lemmy.ca

Best would be, like it was mentioned in a previous reply, having an instance crawling through everything and the possibility to set a "home instance" which automatically shows the result in the instance the user uses - but still with a link to show the original instance similar like it is with URL rewrites.

Vlad

Nankeru Thanks for the feedback, I suspected it would be bad. Custom site list like you did should be the way to go for this, especially as we improve results from these sites (on our todo).

Vlad

A user posted this site on Discord

https://www.search-lemmy.com

Can you confirm it does a good job at searching? It has an API and we can support them/partner to expose search results.

yablak

Doesnt seem great. Compare:

https://lemmy.world/search?q=Mindscape&type=All&listingType=All&page=1&sort=TopAll

https://www.search-lemmy.com/results?query=Mindscape&page=1&mode=posts

Also tried a similar comparison for "python datetime" and saw similarly the search site is not as comprehensive.

Vlad

yablak It does not seem to search comments, only posts.

ray

Loving this! Thanks for adding it 🙂

snaggen

Tested the Fediverse Forums lens, searching for different programming related topics, and I didn't get any hits from programming.dev which is a large programming related instance. For some searches I got secondary hits, where kbin.social federated programming.dev communities.
So, it seems that programming.dev is not available with this lens, which is unfortunate since some of the larger programming communities are hosted there.

Vlad

snaggen tweaked, try now?

Value7609

TehPers

This is normally advertised via the canonical link which sole description is "Valid for <link>, it defines the preferred URL for the current document, which helps search engines reduce duplicate content.". Which is exactly the reason this exists.

And at least on lemmy.world (I only tested it there) this is the case, e.g. https://lemmy.world/post/10295070 (I just picked the top post currently) has this tag:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://lemmy.nz/post/5130246" data-inferno-helmet="true">

which is the exact same URL as this Fediverse button

CrunchyFritos

Can someone clarify for me why this would be a separate lens and not just rolled into the existing "Forums" lens? I applaud the effort but am just curious why there should be separate "Forums" and "Fediverse Forums" lenses. If I want a forum-based result, presumably it would be most helpful to just search across all forums?

Vlad

CrunchyFritos For fidelity of results. If it was brought together big sites like reddit will overshadow everything in results. So we are giving smaller communities visiblity by separating them out.

snaggen

Vlad
Yes now I see hits from programming.dev, for these searches.

9rqnq

Does the Lemmy lens work correctly? Because I get no results from Lemmy/Kbin with the lens on, only general results. Here's an example with two searches, "kagi" and "rust".

Search for "kagi" with a lens on:

Search for "kagi" with a lens off:

Search for "rust" with a lens on:

Search for "rust" with a lens off:

As you can see, I get different results, but the search with the lens is general, regardless of the specific lens.

Vlad

9rqnq I am not able to reproduce. Can you make sure you select "Fediverse Forums" lens

9rqnq

Vlad As you can see in the screenshots (my first comment), the "Lammy & Kbin" lens (I assume you mean this lens with "Fediverse Forums") is checked.

I also tried it one more time (with "kagi" as the search term), and it still doesn't give me any forum instances. Only general websites (not Fediverse forums, neither Lamy nor Kbin instances).. I also tried the "Forums" lens, and it gave me Reddit and Hacker News forums. I believe that one works as expected.

Vlad

9rqnq There is no Lemmy & Kbin official lens. Our official lens is called "Fediverse Forums"

9rqnq

Vlad I know my error now. As you said, the correct and working lens is "Fediverse Forums" - it works. And I previously used maybe an old and outdated "Lemmy & Kbin" lens, which seems not to work properly.

I believe it is pretty confusing to have both lenses. Maybe the old one ("Lemmy & Kbin") should be removed from the lens list. Also, in the last changelog (which links to this post), the "Fediverse Forums" lens is referred to as

Lemmy/Kbin search lens
Although it is technically correct, I believe it was also confusing when the other similar non-working lens exists.

Does that lens exist only for me?

It is also not possible for me to edit or remove that lens or deactivate it.

It returns to the active list every time I remove it from the list (green toggle).

« Previous Page