NickFeb 22
How do you use hashtags on Fedi (if at all)?
(Please boost for reach. I'm intentionally not using hashtags in this post because that would obviously bias the sample horribly.)
I regularly put hashtags in my posts
30.5%
I regularly search for info using hashtags
20.4%
I follow hashtags and find it useful
32.3%
I don't use hashtags much if at all
16.8%
Poll ended at .
Show threadDougMerritt (log😅 = 💧log😄)Feb 22

@internic
I tried hashtag searching when I was new-ish here, and it didn't work out for me, so I've ignored them since.

It's possible I just didn't know what I was doing; sometimes I think I should look into it again.

Show threadNickFeb 22
@dougmerritt I try to use them sometimes, but my experience has been similar to yours; they don't seem to work very well for me. My perception is that most people don't actually use them, so I was curious to get some (admittedly unscientific) data on that.
Show threadDougMerritt (log😅 = 💧log😄)Feb 22
@internic
@AmenZwa is fond of them, perhaps he'll have an opinion.
Show threadamen zwa, esq.Feb 22

@dougmerritt @internic
I tag my posts in the same way I use “keywords” in my peer-reviewed papers. So, my use of tags tend to be more transmission than reception.

In my experience, tag searches are no more effective than ordinary word searches.

Show threadBenjamin GeerFeb 22
@AmenZwa @dougmerritt @internic My impression is that hashtags come and go. Some formerly popular ones have died down, others are still going strong, and some new ones have become popular in the meantime. Some are very low-traffic but still worth checking in on from time to time.
Show threadNickFeb 23

@benjamingeer @AmenZwa @dougmerritt @benjamingeer @brettm @SeaJay I think there are probably a lot of conditions that determine whether hashtags are useful:
1. There is one or a few obvious hashtags that you would use for a given topic.
2. It won't collide with other unrelated words that are written the same way (in a language widely used on the platform).
3. There is an obvious hashtag that's sufficiently specific to target a specific audience (rather than being a mix of very different things).
4. There is not too much spamming of the hashtag with low quality content (from bots or people habitually using the hashtag on large numbers of posts).
5. There is a critical mass of users who use the hashtag within a given time interval (either it's just a popular topic on the platform, the platform is so large that the long tail effect is in operation, or it's related to some specific event that happens in a short period of time with heightened interest).

For example, I think things like programming languages work on Fedi because they have an agreed upon name, it's often not something that people would be likely to hashtag with a different meaning, it's not overly broad, and Fedi is full of coders.

I think I've tried to use them on topics that don't meet some or all of those criteria, like questions about Apple software (where there is plenty of interest in the topic, but it's broad and gets some amount of spam) or physics (where there's a much smaller set of users who are interested, and it's a broad topic where people can be interested in very different things, both in terms of sub-fields and level of sophistication).

Show threadCameron Jones
@internic @benjamingeer @AmenZwa @dougmerritt @brettm also, every time trump does something stupid, the related country's hashtag is often an interesting place to visit, even if it is normally quiet
Feb 23 at 7:11amWeb
Show threadamen zwa, esq.Feb 23

@SeaJay
Very true. But, mate, we don't need tags to highlight this imbecile's stupidity—res ipsa loquitur.🤣

@internic @benjamingeer @dougmerritt @brettm

Show thread💙🩷💜Ⓑⓡⓔⓣⓣ🐡🍉🐧Feb 23
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] in my obsrvations, tags for uspol are generally used by the "my opinions are too important for content warnings" types, who think they are the centre of the universe. Blocking those people and anyone who boosts them has made my fedi experience a thousand times better
Show threadNickFeb 25
@brettm My perception was that people use the uspol hashtag specifically to facilitate filtering by those who wish to filter that content (i.e. a pro-social action).
@AmenZwa @SeaJay @benjamingeer
Show thread💙🩷💜Ⓑⓡⓔⓣⓣ🐡🍉🐧Feb 25
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] this use is only needed because people don't use the thing specificlly designed for content warnings to give content warnings. The "my opinions are too important for content warnings" types just love tags, as (when called out) tags give them an excuse to say "you can just filter out the tag" conviniently ignoring that

a) many ppl want uspol, just not un-cw uspol

b) not everyone uses the big softwares like mastodon or gotosocial that has filtering
Show threadNickFeb 25

@brettm I don't really post about politics on Mastodon, so this isn't directly relevant to me, but I think the way Mastodon (and other fedi software) uses content warnings is inherently unworkable at in a large, heterogeneous network.

The basic issue is that there are many different issues for which subsets of users may want CWs, and users are not generally mutually aware of them. In plenty of cases there are pretty strong reasons to want them, but they may only applicable to a small subset of folks (think, for example, various phobias). So the only logical courses of action are CW everything (decreasing the utility and hampering usability) or use a different mechanism.

As evidence of this, I have seen people argue about CWs on food, things with eyes, things with holes, insects, and black and white pictures, among other things. Topics that would widely be considered innocuous but at least some of which are legitimately problematic for a certain subset of people. There just isn't consensus on what should have CWs, and in a large, diverse network I would not expect there to ever be. So I generally view trying to make CWs work as futile.

An approach somewhat similar to the one Bluesky uses is probably more reasonable, where you have a "labeler" that flags posts as containing certain content and then allow the user to control how that is handled (show, hide completely, or CW). Labeling can be based on hashtags applied by users but can also be augmented by algorithmic processing where practical (e.g. computer vision).

@SeaJay @benjamingeer

Show thread💙🩷💜Ⓑⓡⓔⓣⓣ🐡🍉🐧Feb 25
CC: @[email protected] @[email protected]

OK but "its hard to know what to content warn when there are a few people who don't want to see some obscure phobia" is a poor excuse for not content warning the obviously-needing content warnings (uspol being the extreme example, as we unfortunately witness the current incarnations of the ineffectual 1930s german social democrats posting 400 times about the provocation-of-the-day)

Show threadNickMar 1

@brettm I would consider the people with phobias or PTSD to be the most compelling case for CWs (where not using them can do real, significant harm to people). Your argument seems to be more about finding certain posts annoying, in which case it seems reasonable to place the onus on the person with the specific preferences to filter content.

But, again, even if I thought the reasons were good, it simply will not work as a system. Some people may find US politics legitimately problematic for their mental health, many just find it annoying, many others want to see it and find CWs annoying, and some believe that others need to see that content and hiding it behind CWs is actively harmful. There's not a consensus on how to handle it, and I don't see any reason to expect one to emerge, so trying to get people to use this mechanism is waste of time and effort.

Finally, I think the attempt among random users to police behavior with respect to content warnings when there is no consensus leads to the bad "home owners association" (HOA) reputation that Fedi has on most other parts of the Internet, where people feel they're constantly being berated for not adhering to unwritten and inconsistent standards. I have personally seen this exact issue drive several interesting posters to either leave Fedi or reduce their activity here. So, in my view, the sooner people abandon trying to police CWs and shift to something more plausibly workable the better.