better interoperability with Mastodon by using hashtags

[Die4Ever]

Requirements

• Is this a feature request? For questions or discussions use https://lemmy.ml/c/lemmy_support
• Did you check to see if this issue already exists?
• Is this only a feature request? Do not put multiple feature requests in one issue.
• Is this a backend issue? Use the lemmy-ui repo for UI / frontend issues.

Is your proposal related to a problem?

This could help Lemmy get more content and maybe even get users by allowing Mastodon users to more easily join in on the fun.

Describe the solution you'd like.

A setting for a community to be able to listen for and add hashtags. Currently a Lemmy community is already listening for Mastodon toots that @community@instance and that's cool, but if they could also listen for a hashtag like #DeusEx then small communities could use this to pull more content.

Similarly, posts made to a Lemmy community could automatically add the hashtag (maybe just visible in Mastodon and not visible on Lemmy?) so that if I make a post to !deus_ex@lemmy.ml then it will automatically show up for Mastodon users who are following the #DeusEx hashtag. These hashtags could maybe also be used for grouping communities or suggested related communities.

Describe alternatives you've considered.

Sorry I can't think of an alternative.

Additional context

I came up with the idea here writing this comment https://programming.dev/comment/2265196

[erlend-sh]

This succeeds

• Function for communities to subscribe to and aggregate fediverse hashtags #3228

[DraconicNEO]

Very much agree, being able to link lemmy posts to hashtags would greatly improve interoperability with mastodon since you could find posts mentioning that subject by searching their hashtag.

Also on the subject of Mastodon interoperability #3402 might also be related since another problem is that you can't see the posts made by users on other Activitypub services like Mastodon or Firefish when they aren't posted to a group/community because profile posts aren't allowed on the service.

[8ullyMaguire]

I don't like seeing posts with hashtags, they feel spammy to me. I'd prefer if there was a way for users to opt-out from this feature.

[informapirata]

Also on the subject of Mastodon interoperability #3402 might also be related since another problem is that you can't see the posts made by users on other Activitypub services like Mastodon or Firefish when they aren't posted to a group/community because profile posts aren't allowed on the service.

That is the fortune of Lemmy and his administrators (and it was the misfortune of the KBin administrators)! In fact, the size of Lemmy's dB manages to remain contained thanks to the fact that you cannot follow users, but you can only follow communities. This way you get two advantages:

• a functional advantage, for the user who sees only the things he is interested in
• a management advantage for the administrator, who is not forced to keep in cache all that enormous amount of garbage that today crowds the federated timelines of activitypub-based social networks

If you want to follow hashtags, you can always open a new Mastodon or Friendica account

[Nutomic]

Following hashtags from Lemmy is impossible because it would be necessary to follow users which is out of scope (Lemmy can only follow communities).

On the other hand it looks very easy to make Lemmy posts in a given community automatically appear in the corresponding Mastodon hashtag. For example all posts in /c/lemmy would appear in the #lemmy hashtag. However Im not sure if this is a good idea, Mastodon users might not like if hashtags end up full of Lemmy posts, particularly for busy communities like /c/memes or /c/worldnews.

[db0]

I don't quite see why it would be a problem for someone in mastodon to see all new meme posts in #memes tbh. We shouldn't tag each and every comment in that thread of course, but tagging the OP would be perfectly fine imho.

[Nutomic]

Yes its only on posts, not comments.

[DraconicNEO]

Yes its only on posts, not comments.

Question, does this also allow a user to add their own hashtags to the posts or is this only an automatic hashtag function?

[db0]

Question, does this also allow a user to add their own hashtags to the posts or is this only an automatic hashtag function?

Sadly, just an automatic one. Once this is merged I'll see if I can hack the lemmy code.