These are the guidelines that I follow about boosting or not boosting something. These guidelines make sense to me. I do not care if they make sense to you or not. I also reserve the right to make rare exceptions when I see it fit, but I have to warn you that I don’t need to be consistent with my exceptions, and that a post has to hit a specific note for me to ignore my rules.
Also, I’ll note here that your popularity elsewhere, or even in the fediverse, does not matter. I regularly don’t boost posts by celebrities who do not use hashtags.
Ultimately, you don’t get to decide how I apply my rules.
Understood?
I try to be a considerate booster. If you know me at all, you know that I don’t like people who have nothing to say but boost all the things. Ironically, I eventually catch on to their shenanigans and end up muting them, so I don’t see all the things that they boost, and they want me to see so badly. If I follow you, it is because I’d like to hear about you. Conversely, I’m selective in my boosting, for the reasons given above.
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By far, the most common case in which I see a post that I would like to boost, but don’t, is when it has no hashtags. This is not merely my own itch that I’m trying to scratch here. Some people do not want to see certain types of contents. Proper tagging helps them know what your content is about, and helps them filter out this content if they don’t want to see it.
For these people, this filtering is self-care. When you post a post without tags, then they cannot care for themselves.
I also don’t boost posts that are merely “boost this post if you [something banal.]” Things like “please boost if you like cats,” “please boost if you are above 50,” etc. Note that I do not include in this group well written posts that ask to boost for awareness. Boosting for awareness is generally worthwhile, whereas boosting for the platitudes I put above ain’t.
Furthermore, I no longer boost posts that are from objectionable sources. Fox News is the prime example here. If it is newsworthy, there is certainly another source you could have picked. If Fox News is the only source, it is most likely a lie. In fact, I don’t even see these posts anymore because I filter them out.
Finally, I don’t boost posts that are just a link. Oh, maybe the link itself gives an idea of what the page I’m going to find at the other end is all about. Maybe I even follow that link and think what a great article! I won’t boost. I hate naked links in posts. Tell us why you agreed or disagreed with the article you link to.
I probably have more rules, but they are not coming up to mind right this moment, and are likely not as important as the rules above.
The ability to add columns in Mastodon advanced webview where you can follow multiple (!) hashtags is really wonderful. In that way you can describe a subject with the most used hashtags and follow all messages separate from your timeline. #tips#fediverse#mastodon#hashtags
The thing that trips me up about making hashtags accessible on social media, by capitalizing each word JustLikeThis, are words like WordPress, or ActivityPub.
I'm guessing these should be all lowercase, so that screen readers don't read these as two separate words?
I'm really starting to see the benefits of allowing spaces in hashtags.
I have the honor of guest-hosting #ILikeToWatch tomorrow, which also happens to be #420day 🫠
#Trivia ~ I started building this playlist in December. At one point, a month ago, it comprised over 100 videos. Since then, it's been whittled down to 18 and I'm still tweaking it. 😅
We depart at 10pm (EDT)
All are welcome. Bring your own munchies 😎
I have the privilege of guest-hosting #ILikeToWatch this week. Since Saturday is also #420day, expect an hour of aural delights. 🫠
We depart at 10pm (EDT)
#Trivia It would have been easy, but boring, to fill the hour with songs about weed. Instead, I opted for music and video appropriate for the gummy experience.
If you put links or hashtags in your alt text, no one will be able to click or select the link or hashtag. It's just going to be read out loud. If you have a link or hashtag to share, that should go in the written part of your post or your tweet, but not the alt text.
Hashtags also aren't clickable when they are put in the subject line for CW (content warnings) posts. Better to put those hashtags in the body of the post.
I have the privilege of guest-hosting #ILikeToWatch this week. Since Saturday is also #420day, expect an hour of aural delights.
Don't worry. It's not gonna be 60 minutes of weed songs. That would be boring. 🫠
We depart at 10pm (EDT)
Bring your own munchies 😎 #hashtags#HashtagGames#HashtagEvents#music#friends
Try using #hashtags in your post. FYI: I think that may help get your post viewed and commented on more often. Also FYI: I'm not really a good person to listen to because I'm going off my failing #memory of what someone #tooted a few months ago.
whoopsie. i joined Fedi a few months ago then
(1) got a job
(2) developed an overbearing paranoia about online privacy and stuff
(3) embarked on a WAY overcomplicated journey to back up and synchronise my digital life
and as a consequence felt i didn't have time to "maintain" an "online presence" :wshum:
but i'm back now (with a fresh username)! i kinda take everything too seriously - it's just fun to see what everyone's up to :gphn_happy:
Mastodon is great for talking to people without pressure or expectation. There are some celebrities here.
Follow @FediTips for starter tips.
Follow @FediFollows for curated lists of whom you should follow.
Follow @lisamelton who boosts interesting and varied posts.
Do lots of searches for #hashtags.
You can follow lots of accounts/hashtags, then set "mute for home" so they don't show up on your home timeline (ie. default feed) but you can go check them whenever you're ready.
Bei Mastodon sind Hashtags für Reichweite essenziell.
Ich fänd es aber schöner wenn die Tags als Metadaten außerhalb des Textes gespeichert wären.
Gibt es Clients die die verbergen?
@dansup@pixelfedStrongly prefer the separated hashtags where they're parsable (I've mixed thoughts on how to handle inline #hashtags as opposed to ones put at the end).
@dansup@pixelfed I would caution against lowercasing tags since concatenated CamelCase words are useful for legibility and accessibility.
Visually this style is more pleasant, but might cause people to new to the platform to not know how to create tags (i.e. by prefixing words/phrases with a #).
You'll also have to contend with how this content appears in feeds or via the API.
Times have changed a lot for #artists and #art appreciators. There is not much we can do in the wilderness of the internet to make it just stop.
So I definitely encourage the adoption of whichever #hashtags that indicate the art piece as not made with #AI. #NoAI or whatever it is. Which such hashtags are widely used nowadays? I wanna browse them.
Is there a better way to find friends and such or do I just need to hang around??
Yes! If your site allows (most do), follow #hashtags for topics that interest you, like #gardening or #tea, places you care about, like #Montreal or #Dakar, or groups you identify with, like #disabled.
I suggest using the website to follow hashtags, because some apps don't support this feature (but posts for a hashtag will still appear in your feed in apps once you've followed it).
I just created posts with content warnings and then put hashtags in the body of the post. It occurred to me that the hashtags may not work, or at least the post won’t show up for people who follow that hashtag. Is that correct? When I googled this, I was confused with the answers I found. Can someone please explain how this works? Thank you!
Hey everyone! 💕 Before anything else, I just want to say a big thank you for letting me join Tooters! Here’s my #Introduction ☺️ I’m Sara, 37 years young and I’m from Portugal. Right now, I’m living it up in the Netherlands. So excited to get to know all of you! 🩷
I echo that welcome. I'm from toot.io, not tooters.org, but it looks like your instance and my instance are friends. Judging from the family name, they might be cousins.
+1 #Netherlands. Haven't been there for a long time, but I have fond memories. Why did you move there from Portugal?
Follow @FediTips for starter tips.
Follow @lisamelton who boosts a variety of interesting posts.
Do lots of searches for #hashtags.
If you have Fediverse sharing turned on in @threads, keep in mind that your posts will be limited by the requirements of the platform they're being viewed on.
For Mastodon:
Topic Tags (and included #hashtags) will display as unlinked plain text.
Quote posts are appended as "RE:" and a link to the quoted post.
Photo or mixed photo/video carousels are limited to 4 media items.
Multi-video posts will only display the first attached video.
I know that not all my interests appeal to everyone, and some would prefer I segment them into separate accounts.
But I refuse to do this because not only is it too much work, it makes me feel like a god damn content farm. And I don’t like feeling like I’m a content farm.
As crazy as this might sound, I write for myself first. If you like what I write, that’s gravy—but that’s just a bonus too.
So if you’re here just for Fediverse posts, I’m sorry to disappoint you—I talk about other stuff too.