@jalefkowit @bea @craigmaloney Doesn't Mastodon already provide that? Isn't that what the federated timeline is? I mean, I'm looking at it. If text arrives on my computer the must be a way to log and then search it.
@Canageek @jalefkowit @craigmaloney sure but then you have only the data for the present and the future
when to identify individuals for some nefarious purpose you want data from the past
@bea @craigmaloney @jalefkowit Ok. So if I was building a search for myself to find people to talk about D&D with these are all features. I wouldn't see people who wanted to be left alone or who are no longer active.
@bea @jalefkowit @craigmaloney Oh sure, that would be harder. But a) If you set it up now and have a big enough hard drive in ten years you'll have close enough all the past data, and b) I would be fine with real time text search. I want to find people talking about role-playing games now, not last year....
Plus, wouldn't you just set your toots to not appear on local timeline of you wanted to be private?
@craigmaloney @jalefkowit @Canageek also this is not quite the whole story because the local and federated timelines contain only public posts