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Is it time for hashtags to evolve?

Well, they're about to on Mastodon due to an upcoming change in v4.2.0, advanced by @Gargron himself.

I have some thoughts.

medium.com/chris-messina/the-p…

#TheProblemWithHashtags


The problem with the problems with hashtags - Chris Messina - Medium

I published my thoughts on Bluesky’s proposals for how the decentralized network might tackle hashtags about a month ago. Days later, Threads launched (notably without hashtags, an omission I…
Chris Messina
#theproblemwithhashtags @Eugen Rochko
in reply to Chris Messina

Eugen Rochko
mastodon - Link to source
Eugen Rochko
• •
No, that change cannot be tested in beta 1, it's not merged. The person you're citing is completely misguided, the change has nothing to do with what they're observing -- in fact, the change would fix their problem, as tags authored in non-Mastodon software that are not included in the body of the post would become visible for the first time. My change would also not remove a hashtag from the end of a paragraph. Only if you put it on its own line.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Chris Messina
mastodon - Link to source
Chris Messina
• •

I think the person I'm citing is myself?

Do you have a set of tests I can look at to better understand the behavior you've designed? I was relying on the screenshots in the Github issue.

Also, I was unaware of this: "as tags authored in non-Mastodon software that are not included in the body of the post would become visible for the first time"; are you saying that ActivityPub already supports non-inline tags on posts?

in reply to Chris Messina

Eugen Rochko
mastodon - Link to source
Eugen Rochko
• •
No, Vince Aggrippino. It's simple, if the end of the post is just hashtags, beginning with a newline, they are not rendered in the body. Yes, it does.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Chris Messina
mastodon - Link to source
Chris Messina
• •

Got it. That does nullify one of my critiques. Glad to hear it.

I maintain that the behavior introduced with this change should be optional and opt-in by default, and that additional capabilities for hashtags and adding metadata should be explored, as the rest of my post suggests.

I will update my post within 48 hours to clarify.

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