Here's something really useful I've found.
One of the great things about the Fediverse is being able to follow hashtags.
But.
If someone puts up a post using that hashtag, and no-one on your instance follows that person or anyone who shares it, it won't appear in your feed.
This is particularly common if you're on a small or single-user instance.
Here's the solution.
First, follow @_followback
It will follow you back.
And then tags.pub bot then reshare all of your posts that use hashtags.
So if you do a post with the hashtag #Fediverse, then @fediverse will share your post.
Here's where the magic happens.
The tags.pub bot will do the same thing to everyone else who follows that followback account.
So if you follow @fediverse, then you'll get a feed of everyone who uses #Fediverse on the Fediverse.
And you'll see their posts even if no-one on your instance follows them.
And it works for all hashtags.
Just put the name of the hashtag, followed by @tags.pub
So @tech follows all posts using #tech, for example.
Or @news follows all posts using #news
#relay #relays #selfhosted #selfhosting #Mastodon #feditip #feditips #fedihelp
reshared this
Evan Prodromou and stib reshared this.
Droppie [infosec] 🐨
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • • •AJ Sadauskas
in reply to Droppie [infosec] 🐨 • • •I saw a post about it the other day by @evan
So I decided to try a bunch of hashtags with it.
Since I'm on a single-user self-hosted instance, it's brilliant.
AJ Sadauskas reshared this.
Evan Prodromou
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • • •Droppie [infosec] 🐨
in reply to Droppie [infosec] 🐨 • • •bugger, fell at the first hurdle, as i feared
AJ Sadauskas
in reply to Droppie [infosec] 🐨 • • •Droppie [infosec] 🐨
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • • •@_followback sort of yes & no. i tried again simply by going to your OP, within friendica, clicked the link rather than used the search function, expecting it to fail, but to my surprise it took me to page tags.pub/profile/_followback per pic1.
i couldn't grasp how to use that page, so clicked its top link, to tags.pub per pic2.
noting there, similar to your OP, that i would then follow, eg,
@[url=https://tags.pub/user/aboutconfig]aboutconfig@tags.pub[/url], i searched that in my friendica search field, which took me to a page matching that, where i could & did Follow it, pic3.i repeated this pattern for some other of my desired tags, but then the wheels fell off when i tried tags that are more popular, eg, when i tried
... Show more...@[url=https://tags.pub/user/Arch]Arch@tags.pub[/@_followback sort of yes & no. i tried again simply by going to your OP, within friendica, clicked the link rather than used the search function, expecting it to fail, but to my surprise it took me to page tags.pub/profile/_followback per pic1.
i couldn't grasp how to use that page, so clicked its top link, to tags.pub per pic2.
noting there, similar to your OP, that i would then follow, eg,
@[url=https://tags.pub/user/aboutconfig]aboutconfig@tags.pub[/url], i searched that in my friendica search field, which took me to a page matching that, where i could & did Follow it, pic3.i repeated this pattern for some other of my desired tags, but then the wheels fell off when i tried tags that are more popular, eg, when i tried
@[url=https://tags.pub/user/Arch]Arch@tags.pub[/url], instead of similarly going to an expectedArch@tags.pubpage for me to follow that tag, it went to actual people who follow that tag, offering me to follow them [which i do not want] but NOT at all also offering me the tag itself; pic4.at this point i have stopped, coz... unless i am still misunderstanding something... it's not going to meet my need... i want tags, not peeps, when i try to follow hashtags.
activitypub.bot
tags.pubDroppie
in reply to Droppie [infosec] 🐨 • • •@Friendly Koala @Marek 🇦🇺🇩🇪 Hi again Marek, hope you're well. I more or less stopped using my new account here as per my "final" post to you about the hashtags difficulty several weeks ago. Tonight though, as per this thread, i wondered if there might now be reason to hope anew.
Would you be kind enough pls, when you have time, to review this thread & advise me your thoughts, wrt your server? Thx.
cc: @Droppie [infosec] 🐨 @AJ Sadauskas @FollowBackBot
Oleastre
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • •Thanks for the advice
So you have to ask a different request for every hashtag you want to follow ?
I hope it is not too heavy on the server.
AJ Sadauskas reshared this.
AJ Sadauskas
in reply to Oleastre • • •David - Forking Mad
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • • •It's a great service.
There's also #TagPush if you want a more focused approach.
verbamea.com/4dd1a1ca55
About Tag Push | VerbaMea
verbamea.comPraktizierende Besserwisserin
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • • •"If someone puts up a post using that hashtag, and no-one on your instance follows that person or anyone who shares it, it won't appear in your feed."
That's not true. I can follow a hashtag without following the person who uses it.
When following a hashtag I get all posts containing that hashtag.
social.growyourown.services/@F…
Fedi.Tips
2026-01-17 19:22:19
planeguy
in reply to AJ Sadauskas • • •Evan Prodromou
in reply to planeguy • • •I think we need to mitigate against centralization there.
One way is to have multiple tag servers. tags.pub exists; so does Fedibuzz and tagpump.app. Other services like surf.social or channel.org use aggregated channels with multiple tags, actors, and other inputs, but they're in the same vein.
I'd love love love to see someone take the code we've made and deploy another server, 3, 5, or 7. I'd be happy to help with that process.