[tedunangst]

Mastodon search is intentionally broken as some sort of abuse deterrent. Like you can't search for Fetterman and then reply to every post with an angry rant. Of course, also makes it impossible to find good content. This is somehow considered a feature.

[FormerBandmate]

It’s a feature in the same way desktop Linux’s reliance on commands and confusing user interface is a feature. It stops anyone but a group of cliquey antisocial coders who developed it from using it, and make sure it’s exactly perfect for their needs. They are then shocked when corporate alternatives that actually try to serve a general userbase (as well as having much more resources) take over everything.

It’s practically the history of open-source, unfortunately. Mozilla was able to resist that for a while but is unfortunately falling into the same trap

[kazinator]

But the issue I'm getting at is completely separate from that.

And anyway you can search for users by substring and then follow them and harass them.

Like in my example whereby I was searching for a dog and it found the user "Musk F___ Dogs".

I think the restriction is on searching for posts by substring of content.