Support groups

[cphuntington97]

support groups using bangtags

[Gargron]

I made a decision not to implement groups. They offer little benefit over a cost of added complexity, and the bangtag syntax personally irks me too.

[joshp23]

This is the main reason that I'm not using Mastadon. Groups are a wonderful feature of GNU Social, and I would love to see them implemented on Mastadon.

However, while that certainly does keep me from enjoying Mastadon, the root of the matter is that...

1. This is an opinion (subjective) based exclusion of an established feature that many, myself included, find far more valuable than is implied above, and not at all visually irksome. "My personal, subjective opinion is better than yours because I hold it," is not a good reason to exclude an established feature set.
   • Also, it is entirely possible to avoid groups if you so choose when they are implemented.
2. Treating subjective opinions as objective truths (ie, "It is my opinion that this provides little value, it is therefore a fact that this is so,") is just bad directional thinking.

This, being an old and closed issue, likely doesn't get the attention that it deserves, but I know that I am not the only one that holds this view.

At any rate, It would be great to see groups in Mastadon, please reconsider.

[Gargron]

Reopening, but not high priority.

[schiessle]

Coming from GNU Social I also miss groups a lot. It is a easy way to exchange messages about a specific topic without the need to follow all the people (and also get all the unrelated messages).

But after thinking about it for a while I wonder why there is this arbitrary distinction between groups and hash tags? Maybe it would be better to simply add the possibility to follow hash tags, similar to Diaspora. It achieves the same but makes it probably easier to use and understand for new users.