Here's something really useful I've found.
One of the great things about the Fediverse is being able to follow hashtags.
But.
If someone puts up a post using that hashtag, and no-one on your instance follows that person or anyone who shares it, it won't appear in your feed.
This is particularly common if you're on a small or single-user instance.
Here's the solution.
First, follow @_followback
It will follow you back.
And then tags.pub bot then reshare all of your posts that use hashtags.
So if you do a post with the hashtag #Fediverse, then @fediverse will share your post.
Here's where the magic happens.
The tags.pub bot will do the same thing to everyone else who follows that followback account.
So if you follow @fediverse, then you'll get a feed of everyone who uses #Fediverse on the Fediverse.
And you'll see their posts even if no-one on your instance follows them.
And it works for all hashtags.
Just put the name of the hashtag, followed by @tags.pub
So @tech follows all posts using #tech, for example.
Or @news follows all posts using #news
#relay #relays #selfhosted #selfhosting #Mastodon #feditip #feditips #fedihelp
Pflanzen und Bücher
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • • •"If someone puts up a post using that hashtag, and no-one on your instance follows that person or anyone who shares it, it won't appear in your feed."
That's not true. I can follow a hashtag without following the person who uses it.
When following a hashtag I get all posts containing that hashtag.
social.growyourown.services/@F…
Fedi.Tips (@FediTips@social.growyourown.services)
Fedi.Tips (social.growyourown.services)Nordnick 🌐
in reply to Pflanzen und Bücher • • •Pay attention to the details.
You can follow a hashtag without folliwing the actor.
But the post from the (remote) actor will just arrive at your instance, when someone is following the actor.
@aj@gts.sadauskas.id.au
AJ Sadauskas
Unknown parent • • •Oleastre
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • • •Thanks for the advice
So you have to ask a different request for every hashtag you want to follow ?
I hope it is not too heavy on the server.
AJ Sadauskas
in reply to Oleastre • • •AJ Sadauskas
Unknown parent • • •I saw a post about it the other day by @evan
So I decided to try a bunch of hashtags with it.
Since I'm on a single-user self-hosted instance, it's brilliant.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • • •David - Forking Mad
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • • •It's a great service.
There's also #TagPush if you want a more focused approach.
verbamea.com/4dd1a1ca55
About Tag Push | VerbaMea
verbamea.comMarek 🇦🇺🇩🇪
Unknown parent • •From what I read, the account name to follow should be @FollowBackBot, have you tried that?
(That's "AT _followback AT tags.pub", replace "AT" and no spaces)
Droppie [infosec] 🐨 likes this.
MFennVT
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • • •tyzbit
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • • •planeguy
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • • •Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
in reply to planeguy • • •I think we need to mitigate against centralization there.
One way is to have multiple tag servers. tags.pub exists; so does Fedibuzz and tagpump.app. Other services like surf.social or channel.org use aggregated channels with multiple tags, actors, and other inputs, but they're in the same vein.
I'd love love love to see someone take the code we've made and deploy another server, 3, 5, or 7. I'd be happy to help with that process.
Mr E McKissock
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • • •@_followback @fediverse @tech @news
"One of the great things about the Fediverse is being able to follow hashtags.
But.
If someone puts up a post using that hashtag, and no-one on your instance follows that person or anyone who shares it, it won't appear in your feed."
I hadn't considered that, makes perfect sense & can see how a self hosted instance would be limiting.