how to find?
The discussion in this community (and others) often goes toward „where can I find [foss software] with [feature]?“
The answers are often similar. Sometimes its direct links, sometimes its a reference to the awesome list on github (why not forgejo?).
But many things are hard to find on that list and the - although repeating - answers are of varying quality.
elastic search for forgefed?
What if we instead had a (federated?) search engine for FOSS software with feature tags and PRs/Suggestions which features are in there but not mentioned yet. Basically like sepiasearch by peertube.
Also important: the current state of development, maybe user numbers and stars/ratings/comments. Because some stuff on the awesome list is borderline unusable if you‘re not really deep in tinkering.
Users are not the enemy
Considering that we are entering a critical phase for FOSS and walled gardens, we should do away with the RTFM approach entirely and embrace semi advanced users starting to use our programs. Although we shouldn’t take all of their shit, we should absolutely start taking criticism ok bad/unusable documentation of UI.
Thanks for reading. I hope my intention shows.
Most people are not even using the integrated search functions. Look at selfhosted groups here in Lemmy. Most people are starting a new thread asking for the same thing instead of using the search. Best example would be “note taking app”
500x the same answers, but everytime someone starts a new thread because they want to ask about “note taking app with fearure x” They are just too lazy to test a few apps themselves 🙄
It seems that only a few people are even reading through the awesome-selfhosted list
If those 2 easy things are not used, a search engine for better filtering is not used too imo 🤔
Although your comment starts great, it repeats the same problematic view I‘m complaining about.
Users shouldnt have to test for „features“. They should be in a tag to filter by.
Awesome selfhosted, I repeat, isnt all that its cracked up to be. Its long, convoluted and has no filter whatsoever. You have to check what wording was used, was it „ai“ or „llm“? For example. Then you have to check what license in case you want to do something with it.
The person working on Forgejo ActivityPub federation has AFAIK stated that they would also like to include a federated “explore” view and this would probably also allow searching by repository tag.
Thanks for mentioning it! That would be great. It has one potential downside in opposition to peertube or fediseer: wouldnt it require the searching party to already be federated? So if an instance is new, federation doesnt kick in until they get followed by other instances or follow other instances by domain/c/community.
Thats how it works on lemmy and mastodon atm and would be very bad for federation.
Yes, but I don’t see how that would be bad for federation. Maybe slightly inconvenient for discoverability though.
Sorry, thats what I meant. Discoverability and therefore user adoption which is extremely critical imo.
