When federating a post from Discourse to the Fediverse, hashtags typed in the Discourse post should be converted into ActivityPub hashtags. Right now, they appear as is on i.e. Mastodon but aren't recognized as hashtags.
Hashtags are the main way to discover new content about a specific topic on the Fediverse. Right now, if you federate a Discourse post about i.e. #Discourse, you rely on your followers to boost your federated post, which will get you only so far beyond the people who already know your project / Discourse forum. However, if hashtags would be recognized, those federated posts could be picked up by the people interested in the same topics and following these hashtags.
Note that the request is about hashtags typed on the post itself, not about the Discourse tags of the federated topics. This gives the control to the author of the federated post to type tags that may or may not exist in the Discourse instance, but are relevant to the federated post.
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Unfortunately the way Discourse uses hashtags is currently incompatible with the broader use of hashtags in social media... so this seems difficult.
For example #plugin converts to #plugin, #activitypub gets converted to #activitypub... these are internal forum references and the context they are used in is different.
I might write something like this in a post for example,
Keep an eye on #announcements for new features!
which wouldn't make sense off-site when federated as #announcements
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@awesomerobot I understand your point, but... let's look at this from a user-centered perspective instead of a Discourse-centered.
If the admins of a Discourse instance decide to install the ActivityPub plugin and enable the features to federate with "Mastodon", they really care about spreading their forum topics across the Fediverse. ActivityPub tags notably increase the probability of these federated posts actually spreading.
Meanwhile, the authors of the posts on Discourse have control on the tags they type. Following this feature request, if they would type #ActivityPub, this string would be converted to an actual tag on Mastodon, etc. If they want to link to i.e. their #announcements category but they don't want this to be federated as an ActivityPub tag, they can simply link to the category URL: Announcements.
Not perfect aesthetically, but both Discourse and Fediverse readers will get the most of these links.
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Yeah it's possible we could come up with some sort of different mode or syntax in activitypub categories to support this if there's enough demand for it. Maybe our tag autocomplete could add a federated tag option or something in addition to internal links.
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Well, hashtags are basically another base functionality because it is the only way to find someone to follow, or something, if hashtag is followed.
But even we had such system tomorrow, the most important issue is still there: followed user/actor.
If a Discourse post #1 (OP) could be found by a hashtag, who would be shown as sender and who could be followed?
We have only one actor here that can be followed, category/tag actor — and that one doesn’t publish anything. It is boosting/re-rooting/sharing what ever name would like to be used. The actual publisher is a user of Discourse, but that one can’t be followed.
If/when we have hashtags, like #discourse and with some magic it will survival thru cleaning process of everything that looks somehow rich text, message/toot using #discourse showss up if someone use it for searching of follows it.
But in that case the followable user, tag/category actor, vanish and followless user of Discourse is shown.
So basically showing hashtags should be there, but until we have something solid and followable to show, there is no point.
System is working nicely Discourse <-> Discourse. But Discourse <-> Mastodon is more unfinished or in progress. And Discourse -> Fediverse is more in theory level, if I’m not totally wrong.
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Jagster:
showing hashtags should be there, but until we have something solid and followable to show, there is no point
Maybe there is no point for you, but for us hashtags are a welcome feature regardless. We use federation as a mechanism for outreach from our Discourse forum to the openness of the Fediverse. All we want is that people read these federated posts, like them, boost them, comment on them… and if they click the link to the forum, even better.
All this can be done regardless of the issue you present, which is valid but orthogonal to hashtags.
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icaria36:
All we want is that people read these federated posts, like them, boost them, comment on them
So do I. But you miss obvious thing. Let’s say @icaria@meta.discpurse.org writes a post in Meta using tag #activitypub and that is an actor too. At that point @activitypub@meta.discourse.org federates post #1 doing a boost of toot and the original writer is @icaria@meta.discourse.org
- booster
@acticitypub@meta.discourse.org can be followed, but no one ever follows boosting actor, and its boosts are visible only for its followers (and here actually we miss all publicity) - writer
@icaria@meta.discourse.org is someone that everyone would like to follow, but no one can’t and if tried the request stays in waiting approval stage. That user’s posts would be visible locally and in federated feed, if someone follows it — but it can’t have followers
Then comes Mastodon user @jagster@kvarkki.nexus and sees that boost, because he is following @activitypub@meta.discourse.org. Otherwise he couldn’t ever see that message. He does a boost. At that point @activitypub@meta.discourse.org disappears and Mastodon, well, one limited part of it, sees @jagster@kvarkki.nexus boosting message by @icaria@meta.discourse.org— and that user is… closed and private.
And now we are back to hashtags. In that post is a hashtag #activitypub . Then someone from an instance mastodon.example.tld search that hashtag and finds a toot from @icaria@meta.discourse.org.
What’s next? That user has hard time to do anything, because for Mastodon actor @icaria@meta.discourse.org is private locked user. And there is absolut no sign of @activitypub@meta.discourse.org and even if there would be some hint, no one would ever be interested of an actor who did a boost. That’s why I would say that Discourse version of ActivityPub is done is for this ecosystem, between Discourses, and because Mastodon/Fediverse works differently, there is a conflict.
Yes. Hashtags are important. But there is no real use for hashtags until we have a real actor where hashtags leads to. Because the very last thing we want to do, is leading users to an actor, that can’t be followed.
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Jagster:
But you miss obvious thing.
We don’t, we understand the problem, it’s just not a problem as big as lack of hashtags for us.
This is a feature request about ActivityPub hashtags. Can we use it to discuss ActivityPub hashtags and move the rest to their own topic, please?
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We are discussing about it. The point is, still, there is absolut no point to build up tag/hashtag connection because it doesn’t help at all, unless the question of followed actor is solved.
It is matter of prioritizing.
Don’t mind the language. You know for sure what it is telling.
That is your #1 issue that can’t be solved with hashtags. Hashtags comes after when there is an actor that can publish, be founded and followed.
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Jagster:
The point is, still, there is absolut no point to build up tag/hashtag connection
Once again, @Jagster I ask you please, can you let us have our own #activitypub priorities even if you disagree with them? I’m just asking to keep this feature request about tags on-topic. You already created https://meta.discourse.org/t/add-support-for-following-regular-users/360592 and it would be great if you could move all your discussion about actors from this topic (about tags) to your feature request (about actors).
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