Hashtags Hubzilla-Mastodon

2026-04-04 11:12:33

adminsforum@hubzilla.org

zotheca wrote the following post Sat, 04 Apr 2026 11:12:32 +0200

Hashtags Hubzilla-Mastodon

Since it was pointed out that this is a rather technical issue, I'm bringing it up again in the support forum :-)

I’d like to point out something here that might be worth improving. Because Mastodon and Hubzilla handle hashtags differently, Mastodon always displays a link preview. You might say, “It’s not that bad,” but that overlooks just how much space this preview takes up on Mastodon. Imagine if several Hubzilla posts were displayed one after another… It’s distracting on a microblogging service when half the screen is taken up by unnecessary graphics and formatting. I’m bringing this up because this issue makes Hubzilla unattractive to many Fediverse users. Friendica doesn’t have this problem. Mastodon shows Friendica posts correctly.

Screenshot:

2026-04-04 12:49:07

Der Pepe (Hubzilla) ⁂

pepecyb@hub.hubzilla.hu

@Hubzilla Support Forum

Opinion(!):

In my view, the way Hubzilla handles hashtags is central to the fundamental concept of communication – or rather, the communication interface – of this service.

And I don’t think Hubzilla should now start reworking and tweaking the software just so that Mastodon can cope with it, without making any changes of its own. Where would that end? I think it’s bad enough that they decided to disable the ‘Article’ post type (not to be confused with the app) for longer posts with multiple sections after such a short time. I believe that, unless there’s a genuine bug, Hubzilla shouldn’t bend itself out of shape just so that Mastodon can somehow cope with it.

And... how far should this go anyway? What about the display on the 'key services (Misskey, Sharkey, ... which are also widely used)? Wouldn’t Hubzilla then have to go even further and adapt to that as well?

2026-04-04 19:38:09

Ema エマ

ema@utasansh.in

Here's how I understand the cause of the described problem (please correct me if I'm wrong).

What is meant to happen when clicking on a hashtag, is looking for other hashtagged content, and then displaying the found content to the user. But it looks like there are two fundamental different approaches for where to do the looking up:

Either, the Fediverse software on the server on which the author has composed the post and placed the hashtag is prompted to do the looking up (that's how it's baked with a link into a post written using Hubzilla, and that's the Hubzilla user experience when reading in the Hubzilla interface a post composed on any Fediverse software)
or, the Fediverse software on the server of the reader is promted to do the looking up (that's how a Mastodon user is experiencing it for posts coming from a Mastodon, Friendica or some other Fediverse Platform servers).

In both cases, the prompted software will show the looked up content from its own server and content which is fetched and stored from third federated servers.

The result of the looking up will be different. Why?

Not all content published on the author's server is fetched and then stored on the reader's server, and the other way round. I assume that only content coming from connected channels/users is fetched and stored (at least that's what I would expect).
The author's server is not federated with the same third servers as the reader's server.

In Hubzilla, the author defines who can read what they write. Maybe this principle of author's sovereignty lead to the decision to impose onto the reader the author's hashtag lookup list? Just guessing. Again, correct me if I'm wrong.

Looking up on the readers' server doesn't require to ship an external link with the post. Looking up on the author's server does. And Mastodon previews external links.

Which of the two looking up approaches is the correct one for Hubzilla? The current approach has not been contested until now, during the soon 16 years of constant development and usage of Hubzilla. Which doesn't mean it cannot be contested. In case you manage to convince the main developpers, I dare to doubt it'll land in the top five of the priority list of the things to do of the understaffed development team.

Edit:
After reflecting a bit, I think I start to see the reasons for the choice made by Hubzilla:
A reader clicks on a hashtag because they want to discover more posts tagged with it which they haven't seen yet. The chance to see such posts is higher if they're not looked up on the own server, but on the server of the author. The hashtag used by the author is then also presented in its context (maybe the author usedit before, or their connections used it before). Searching on the own server would often lead to only a few (or even zero) results, taking into account that a significant percentage of the Hubzilla hubs are single user hubs or used by only few people, and that Hubzilla channels usually have less than 150 connections. Hubzillan bubbles are usually rather small. Looking for foreign hashtags in my own bubble would be of little sense.

It's another thing when we're talking about structurizing / organizing my own posts in my channel. For that purpose, Hubzilla offers categories. They're looked up on my own server.

2026-04-04 22:12:51

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Hubzilla Support Forum Again, the reason for all this trouble is:

Everyone and their dog thinks Twitter has invented the hashtag in 2009. Everyone and their dog thinks that hashtags are always like those on Twitter. With the number sign as part of the link.

#Hashtag

And everyone and their dog expects hashtags to always be like this, including but not limited to Mastodon and Misskey. Because how else could they possibly be?

Hubzilla, on the other hand, has inherited its hashtags from Friendica.

Friendica has adopted them from StatusNet because it federated with StatusNet from the get-go whereas Twitter connections only came much later.

StatusNet has inherited them from Laconi.ca which started its life as the server source code of Identi.ca which, in turn, has introduced hashtags in 2008, the year before Twitter did.

Identi.ca, Laconi.ca, StatusNet, Friendica, Hubzilla and Hubzilla's descendants all have the number sign ahead of the link, as in outside the link and not as part of the link.

#Hashtag

However, nothing else even expects hashtags to be like this. So nothing else supports hashtags that are like this.

So everything that isn't Friendica or Hubzilla or (streams) or Forte thinks this is a normal embedded hyperlink which just happens to have a number sign right ahead of itself. At best.

At worst, like Misskey and all the Forkeys, it's caught completely off-guard by such a contraption, and it fails utterly ungracefully.