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 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.
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
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?
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.
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!
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.
This week's Jukebox Friday Night's theme is "Change of Seasons." Which, for me, is a rough category.
So, I'm just not going to participate. I really can't think of anything. Instead of racking my brain or stressing myself out over not finding a song, I'll pass.
I need to remind myself, sometimes, it's okay to just...not participate in the fun hashtag activities from time to time and not let it stress me out.
Which is hard cause, anxiety. But, still, a good reminder.
With that initial flurry of users 18 months to two years ago, hashtags were used a lot and helped surface great people to follow. It seems that has waned and now I barely see hashtags used at all. Perhaps it's something that could be solved with AI? Like suggested "topics" to add three hashtags at the bottom or even automatically add them (with an appropriate opt-in preference at the user account level).
Aus welchem Grund wird mir ein sowohl blockierter wie auch stummgeschalteter #Account hier im #fediverse von #Mastodon in der #Timeline dennoch angezeigt?
There are many things to like about Mastodon, but one thing I have come to love, with all its blurriness, is being able to follow #hashtags. It truly is delightful.