I have Mastadon questions. The easiest way for me to ask them is to give specific examples

Example1: search function. I wanted to find posts on Mastadon about Australia’s #RoboDebt. I put it into the search function both with and without the #. Nothing came up. What am i doing wrong?

Example 2: in my quest to find old bird people i tried to look at who others i have found are following. It wouldn’t show anyone but me because all the others are on other servers.

Is there another way?