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2024-06-12 21:49:53

julianlawson@mastodonapp.uk

Hashtags are obviously important in Masto as there's no algorithm. But when someone toots with 20 tangentially related hashtags it really irritates me. It's super spammy and shouty. #hashtags

2024-06-15 09:48:54

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Julian Lawson Keep one thing in mind, though:

Like everything else, hashtags can be filtered. In fact, hashtags are good for filtering. Depending on where in the Fediverse you are, especially far away from Mastodon, filters can remove posts, filters can out-right block posts (not on Mastodon, but elsewhere), and filters can automatically generate content warnings, since last year even on Mastodon.

Many of us aren't on Mastodon. Some of us are in places where the use of filters, especially to generate content warnings, has been part of the culture since the very beginning. And that beginning was often before Mastodon's beginning.

That's part of why I use so many hashtags. If I put the four hashtags #FediMeta, #FediverseMeta, #CWFediMeta and #CWFediverseMeta on a post or a comment, it's about the Fediverse, and the hashtags serve to trigger the filters of those who don't want to read the stuff I write about the Fediverse.

I use four hashtags instead of only one because there are these four possible hashtags that can be used or filtered for this topic, and I can't possibly know who uses which hashtag or hashtags in their filters. So I use all four to catch them all.

If I use the four hashtags #Long, #LongPost, #CWLong and #CWLongPost, it's because a post or a comment exceeds 500 characters which disturbs many Mastodon users deeply. So they can at least filter out the latter three to get rid of my over-500-characters content without having to mute or block me entirely. This is also necessary because I don't have the technical means to put Mastodon-style content warnings on posts.

If I use #Fedisplaining, I'm not talking about fedisplaining. I'm rather doing something that may be considered fedisplaining. Whoever doesn't want to see that can filter that hashtag.

In the case of this comment, only #Hashtag and #Hashtags would be hashtags for the purpose of discoverability.