I think following specific hashtags of a profile would be useful. Technically it's like following a profile but the timeline posts filtered by specific hashtags. Perhaps similar logic on Mastodon, to hiding boosts from profile or filtering posts by subscribed languages.
Could probably solve the issue where folks create multiple accounts for different interests or circles.
@cheeaun This exists on Forkeys as Antennas. Follow a set of users related to a specific hashtag or keyword that appears in their posts. It’s not retroactive tho, it starts collecting the posts written after the antenna gets setup.
@cheeaun Agreed, too complicated. I like your idea of Follow Tags from the Profile, much easier. You could kinda implement this today with some API trickery but you'd have to store the user/tag combos somewhere. Kinda like you do with your hashtag combo timelines now, maybe?
@box464 still too hacky. This is in fact like the inversed version of keyword filtering but for specific accounts.
Even if this is implemented (on Mastodon or any mainstream platforms), it'll probably take time for people to shift their mindset over this. Another problem that someone mentioned is that the hashtag following won't work for boosts, if say, boosting music-related posts, which may not be hash-tagged, from a music-interest account.
@cheeaun I advocate for this pretty much since the day I started using Mastodon. It's frustratingly close already, with the ability to pin hashtags to a profile. All that's needed is a way to subscribe to that instead of the full profile...
Do you think this could be "solved" on the client-side with Phanpy? 🤔
> Follow hashtags, not people
>
> If a person who's writing regularly about ‘open source’ decided to start a farm and consequently began posting mostly about ‘agriculture’, I'd be far less interested in their feed as a whole. However, if that same person was still writing occasionally about open source, now with an added ecology-informed perspective, I'd be more excited than ever to keep up with that particular segment of their writings!
@cheeaun YES! Hugely useful for following sports. E.g., #MastodonFC, #NFL and the hashtags of the individual teams and clubs, like #COYS and #LFC for instance. I created this here separate account for just that purpose because I found it impossible to mix my 'normal' account with this one; I was forever afraid to boost and post about sport because it's irrelevant to 99% of my followers there.
Also, being able to add hashtags to lists would be huge. As would being able to share lists.
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