moonwifeApr 22, 2023

People mention a lot how important hashtags are for discovery on mastodon/fedi, but one thing I never see mentioned is that when you follow or search for an HT, you only get results from posts that have federated to your instance (ie posts made/boosted by someone at least one person on your instance follows).

On huge instances, nbd; but on smaller ones, HTs may seem significantly less active than they really are.

If you like following HTs, boosting HTed posts makes it a more effective feature.

Show threadBotolo
@jepyang Super interesting. So if I understand correctly, when I follow a hashtag I only get (i) messages with that hashtag that were posted on the instance I am a member of and (ii) messages with that hashtag that were posted on other instances but only if someone in my instance boosted them? If so, this explains why I was having so few messages on hashtags in different languages that I follow. It's because I am not a member of an instance that people speaking that languages usually join.
Apr 24, 2023 at 2:58pmWeb
Show threadBotoloApr 24, 2023
@jepyang I wonder if @stux can confirm the above.
Show threadmoonwifeApr 24, 2023

@botolo86 Not quite. It’s all the posts made or boosted by everyone that at least one person on your instance *follows* (plus everything posted/boosted on your instance).

Basically your instance has a list of accounts on other instances that it knows it needs to download every new post/boost from—based on your follows and the follows of everyone else on your instance. This is what you see on your “federated” timeline, and is the collection of posts that you can search for hashtags.

Show threadmoonwifeApr 24, 2023

@botolo86 From the other side of the equation:

Say you make a post tagged # synthDIY. It gets downloaded to the instances of everyone who follows you. If anyone else on their instances follows # synthDIY, they will also see your post. But that’s as far as your post goes…unless someone else boosts it, and it goes to the instances of everyone who follows *them*. Then the people who follow # synthDIY on those instances will get your post too!

Show threadBotoloApr 24, 2023
@jepyang This is quite confusing. It would be much better to have global searches, including hashtags.
Show threadmoonwifeApr 24, 2023
@botolo86 You’re entitled to your opinion but I don’t really agree.
Show threadBotoloApr 24, 2023
@jepyang Sure, and please do not consider my previous message a critique to what you said. Your explanation was very clear. I find this way of managing hashtags by Mastodon quite confusing. When I search for an hashtag, I assume that I will get results of all messages posted with that hashtag from all the instances connected to my instance, whether someone in my instance boosted that or not.
Show threadmoonwifeApr 24, 2023

@botolo86 > I assume that I will get results of all messages posted with that hashtag from all the instances connected to my instance, whether someone in my instance boosted that or not.

Neither of these are actually what is happening.

Instances don’t really “connect” with one another. It’s kind of implied that this is the case with the way we talk about instances federating with other instances, but it’s more of a passive relationship: merely the absence of defederation.

Cont’d…

Show threadmoonwifeApr 24, 2023

@botolo86 Your instance doesn’t really do anything with other instances other than verify that neither one blocks the other.

What *actively* federates with your instance are individual posts. Your instance decides which posts to download based on the follow lists of everyone on the instance. This set of posts (plus all posts that originate on your instance) are what you access when you search a hashtag.

Cont’d…

Show threadmoonwifeApr 24, 2023
@botolo86 So it’s not every post from every server that your instance is capable of seeing… but it is *way* more than just what is posted or boosted by the people on your instance.