Am I overreacting?

Am I overreacting? The server @tags.pub takes every of my toots that contain any hashtag, and boost it using an account that has the name of said hashtag.

If I want to follow a hashtag, there is native feature for that within mastodon / activity pub. So my knee jerk reaction is that this is some shady click harvesting. Or?

#Mastodon #ActivityPub #HashTag

@MichalBryxi following a hashtag only works for content on instances you directly federate with. So there is a technical reason to implement it like that. Whether you like that is another question and I'd probably block that too.

@alex Like the protocol is not reliable to federate this? Or that the load on those servers won’t allow it? Or that there are other self imposed?

If this is not a neferious activity. And if this could be achieved by following hashtags, but some arbitrary limits prevent it, then that’s another case of “straightener for a bender”: It could be fixed at the source, but some beaurocratic thing makes it so hard that it’s easier to deploy this hack.

@zhenech And that implies that (neferious servers and private use cases aside) it is common in this space to not federate with everyone?

@zhenech Yeah, it’s a bit weird feeling. That’s why I asked.

@alex Oooh. Those conditions have AND or OR between them? I assume OR. Then (b) makes sense. (a) for following a hashtag seems duplicate as I already follow said person…

@zhenech @MichalBryxi

Yes. The service was not created for nefarious purposes, but to address issues with how things work or not work in today's fediverse.

There was a FOSDEM presentation on the matter, given by @evan creator of the service, where the intent and purpose is well-explained:

FOSDEM 2026 - tags.pub - following hashtags globally

(fosdem.org)

@alex @MichalBryxi

I find this habit of creating magic profile hashtags to be a real bad practice, especially when modeling opt-outs in app-specific manner. cc @evan

#ActivityPub

@alex Purely from technical perspective there is no need to have central server. IMO. You follow account, your server and their server exchange information about activity so that your server can give you information on what they did.
I don’t see a reason why the same could not happen for a hashtag. Your server knows which accounts you follow as well as hashtags. Collection can happen for both.
Network load and other real world limitations aside of course.

@alex Thanks for your time btw. I could as well just google it and read on the topic.

@MichalBryxi but hash tags are not linked to a server - unlike an account. So it's a bit "where are we going to fetch tags from", all servers we know of? Would likely have quite the overhead.

You used to be able to pull in from the streaming API on servers, but recent changes broke that (for privacy/load reasons as I understand it).

I'd absolutely love a solution though I've got quite the amount of jank that runs here and a lot of relays I'm connect to so that I actually get content.

@alex @MichalBryxi @evan

> The NoBot isn't app specific fwiw, it's pretty standard.

"pretty" boils down to de-facto standard, or rather it became a sorta kinda requirement by means of post-facto #interoperability. In other words: Who comes first, and popularizes some custom app-specific extension, becomes owner of that part of the spec that is now considered protocol-native.

#NoBot is app-specific too. Or Microblogging domain-specific perhaps, albeit implicitly then.

When it comes to considering it standard, we talk about accepting #ActivityPub protocol decay. Specifically:

- Considering the way account profiles are handled to be part of the protocol.
- To handle special control words (or just #NoBot) in the profile text.

🫧 socialcoding.. (@smallcircles@social.coop)

Attached: 1 image I recreated an old diagram in Excalidraw that I spread about a couple years ago, and made it a bit more informative. Explanation can be found in the #AltText See also and for discussion: https://discuss.coding.social/t/diagram-interoperability-in-practice/828 Or join the Social experience design chatroom at: https://matrix.to/#/#socialcoding-foundations:matrix.org Also posted to #SocialHub at: https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/activitypub-versus-fediverse-interoperability-in-practice/8498 @ben@werd.social #SX #SocialCoding #SocialWeb #ActivityPub #SolidProject #fediverse

social.coop (social.coop)

@alex yes, your suggestion was a good one. I did not mean to call you out, just to stipulate the matter to Evan in the mentions and other AP devs. Sorry, if that was unclear.

@MichalBryxi you only federate if there is a "connection" (I think "a user interacted with a post from the other instance" is enough to establish one)

@alex @smallcircles @evan Side note: After few decades in IT the #NoBot solution integrated into user profile *text* / bio is something that immediately sounds 🧯as something that will be problematic (as it’s just a monkey patch on an incorrect spot) and should be redesigned when accepted conceptually.

@smallcircles @alex @MichalBryxi it's pretty common on the Fediverse.

That said, I'd love to add vocabulary terms for it. And you could edit your actor object and add them.

@MichalBryxi hi! I'm one of the authors of ActivityPub and the developer of tags.pub.

There is not a native ActivityPub way to follow a hashtag.

Following a hashtag in Mastodon only shows you everything with that tag that is shared by someone on your server, or someone that someone on your server follows.

The point of tags.pub is to follow hashtags globally.

If you don't want to participate, block away!

@MichalBryxi @alex @smallcircles it's a hack, agreed.

@MichalBryxi One problem with following hashtags (at least on madtodon) is that I can only follow them in my main feed or not at all. For accounts I can build specific lists and hide them in the main feed.
But I also think what tags.pub is doing is a very ugly workaround that generates a lot of redundant data.

@evan@cosocial.co

> it's pretty common on the Fediverse.

Yea, but its a hack that leads to nothing good. I can already imagine future profile hashtag template collections full with control words tweaked for specific setups and scenario's, and people being blamed for lack of proper "profile hygeine" when they complain about data harvesting by obscure services that weren't properly configured.

@alex @MichalBryxi