Mastodawn

Matthias Pfefferle Mar 17

Introducing tags.pub

tags.pub is a new service under development by the Social Web Foundation. It is a global hashtag server -- it lets you follow a hashtag across the Fediverse. There's lots of information on the tags.pub home page, and I (Evan) did a talk about tags.pub at FOSDEM 2026. This blog post answers some basics about tags.pub. To follow a hashtag globally, search for a user with that name at tags.pub, like @example for the #example hashtag. Follow that account, and it will share all the […]

https://socialwebfoundation.org/2026/03/17/introducing-tags-pub/

The Void ザ・ヴォイド Mar 17

@evanprodromou Very cool, thanks. Giving it a try…

kattekrab Mar 17

@evanprodromou @example ooooh. I like the sound of this.

Sam at BLAG Mar 17

@evanprodromou Looks like I'm the first to follow @signpainting and @signwriting, among a few others to get the ball rolling.

I'm intrigued to see how this works and what lands in my feed as a result...

Evan Prodromou Mar 18

@blag Great!

Sam at BLAG Mar 21

@evan Quick follow-up: is there any way to *not* have the boosts by these bots appear in notifications? I don't get a lot of boosts, so now they're getting in the way of 'genuine' human boosters...

Evan Prodromou Mar 21

@blag sure; put hashtag NoTagsPub in your bio. Or, block tags.pub domain.

@[email protected] I'm assuming @[email protected] still wants the boost but not to be notified about it?

It can be done if the recipient boostee isn't explicitly addressed, I think.

Evan Prodromou Mar 21

@julian it might be possible but it prevents the server from tracking shares. I'm not going to implement that.

Evan Prodromou Mar 21

@julian "I don't want notifications from particular users/domains/whatever" is a client issue.

Evan Prodromou Mar 21

@julian @blag another option is muting the hashtag users. That should prevent notifications by those users. Unfortunately, you have to do it for each user, but if you use the same hashtag a lot, it should help.

Sam at BLAG Mar 24

@evan @julian Yes, none are ideal solutions as I want to actively follow the hashtags, especially the ones I regularly use.

A possibly unintended consequence of this is that posts that use hashtags are now going to appear more popular due to this automated boosting. (At least for people like me that usually have single-figure numbers of boosts on their posts.)

No sweat, I'll accept my new-found popularity with the robots and continue to follow the tags accounts that relate to my interests.

Evan Prodromou Mar 24

@blag @julian 🙏🏼

@evanprodromou How is this different from https://relay.fedi.buzz ?

#FediBuzz Relay

The buzzing ActivityPub relay service

Evan Prodromou Mar 18

@the_moep Fedibuzz is great! It normally works as a relay, though. So, you have to be an admin to set it up. But I’ve recently found out you can also follow the accounts, like with tags.pub. So it’s similar in that way. I think it’s a big Fediverse and it’s good to have different services.

@evanprodromou Sorry, maybe this came out a bit more adveserial than it was meant. I was thinking more of actual technical differences between the services.

پویان Pouyan Mar 17

@evanprodromou is this similar to #FediBuzz by @astro ?

https://c3d2.social/@astro/109564159868966861

Astro (@[email protected])

Here is my xmas present to all the #Mastoadmin of small instances: the new #FediBuzz #relay! https://relay.fedi.buzz/

C3D2.social

𝕁𝕠𝕙𝕒𝕟 Mar 17

So this isn't global tracking, but rather opt-in for a couple of servers and a dozen individual users?

Rusty Shackleford Mar 18

@johan @evanprodromou

Re: https://mastodon.social/@rusty__shackleford/116188992459133547

When you are on the fedi, your messages are broadcast. ***Anyone*** can see them. That's why I can see your posts, mastodon.social saved your post, and served it to me, and vice versa, that's why you see this text.

If you don't want the possibility of 'tracking', we may not have been able to have this conversation but you could join a private server, or be more safe about your personal identity, or get offline.

𝕁𝕠𝕙𝕒𝕟 Mar 18

@rusty__shackleford @evanprodromou

Exactly. For example, in the Cyrillic segment there’s a bot that reposts every message in Russian it can get access to. And it operates on an opt-out basis.

Here, however, as I understand it from the description, either you yourself (for your own account) or the server admin (for the whole server) has to connect the bot manually. And posts from those who don’t do that simply won’t be seen by the bot.

Evan Prodromou Mar 18

@johan We’d like to get it to global, but we’re doing it a step at a time.

Octothorpe Protocol Mar 17

@evanprodromou @example @_followback hi! we are very interested in talking to you about this

Evan Prodromou Mar 18

@octothorpes Great!

Octothorpe Protocol Mar 19

@evanprodromou The reason we interested is that Octothorpes is a distributed hashtag protocol. https://docs.octothorp.es/ The two of us running this account are both going on vacation next week but if you're around, we'd be keen to connect in early April.

Octothorpe Protocol v0.5

Announcing our first version release and a new docs site

Quinn Comendant Mar 18

@evanprodromou @example It’s probably worth adding an explanation why tags.pub is necessary; aka: why Mastodon’s existing “follow hashtag” feature is inadequate.

Evan Prodromou Mar 18

@com There’s a whole section on it in the video!

Quinn Comendant Mar 18

@evanprodromou I checked your blog post and the tags.pub website, but I can’t find a video. 🤷‍♂️

Andre Nantel Mar 18

@evanprodromou When I click on the @_followback link in your blog entry I get a bunch of code.

Evan Prodromou Mar 18

@nantel @evanprodromou Don't click on it. I haven't built the pages yet. Search for it in Mastodon. I'll fix the link.

Polycraftsman Mar 18

@evanprodromou @example @_followback

This seems like a similar concept to fedigroups but without manual verification to create a group yes?

I think there's an issue with the follows, at least with NodeBB. Followback didn't follow me back, and the relay won't establish 😅

It's probably just NodeBB being overly strict.

Evan Prodromou Mar 21

@julian @swf I had a follow bug; try unfollowing and refollowing and see if that fixes it.

@[email protected] looks like i can't follow from Sharkey. There seems to be a open issue about it https://github.com/social-web-foundation/tags.pub/issues/9

Misskey follow doesn't work · Issue #9 · social-web-foundation/tags.pub

hi Evan, sorry for tagging you publicly but I think others might be interested in this. Tags.pub is a great idea, but I can't follow accounts from tags.pub from Catodon/Sharkey (and I guess Misskey...

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