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Mickey Hoyle @mhoyle

Ok, so searching for users / names outside of your instance is still kind of impossible or a pain. I can find some, but not others.

Is this by design, or something possibly to be changed in the future? @Gargron @TheAdmin @FrankN

Also: Some usernames/accounts are "reserved", but I can only see this in an incognito browser and not when logged in...

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randulo 🎸 @randulo

@mhoyle I think some instances block or discourage that. I just tried a name on two other instances and it worked immediately

Daniel Honigman @Danielhonigman

@mhoyle @FrankN @TheAdmin @Gargron Think it's just the distributed nature of the platform. Will likely improve over time.

tuxhedoh @tuxhedoh@mastodon.technology

@mhoyle
So let's say you want to find "Mr Robot". Mr. Robot lives on mastodon.witches and you're on mastodon.cloud. If the two aren't federated (meaning they don't talk to each other) you won't see them.

So this is by design. IF they are federated, than there should not be any problem seeing them and if you're not, than there is an issue.

Mickey Hoyle @mhoyle

@tuxhedoh Yeah, I understand now. It takes getting used to the idea of instances, and them being federated or not. It's been quite a while since email clients weren't even able tot alk to eachother... :stuck_out_tongue: thanks!

Lee Goolsby @golero@octodon.social

@TheAdmin @FrankN @mhoyle I think the workaround is to @ them and then click their name from your tweet. It works if you know their username, but if not Mastodon is deliberately designed to not be able to search for usernames to prevent harassment, if I remember correctly.

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