@julia wouldn't it he better if :activitypub: clients were to properly handle #hashtags and if #discoverability wasn't useless because making it a hidden #OptIn setting means noone I know ever activated it successfully...
I think :mastodon: and other implementations should just have an option to display the # instead...
Sadly using hashtags is a necessarx evil because #FullTextSearch - even one's own posts - DOES NOT WORK!!!
Discarding the tagging system is not entirely fair, as one could use #hashtags to show the topic(s) of intent. I think what @julia tried to point out is their excessive or purposeless insertion.
Another point to consider is the remaining servers that don't have full-text search landed or it's simply too expensive for one tiny cozy instance that your friendly administrator might be hosting.
Also, it is long overdue that accessibility tools catch up with the times - or for platforms to optionally strip # characters for screenreader's sake. Let the technology serve, not people nudge their freedom of expression, fanatism aside.
@fell put them at the end instead of inline, its terrible for people with ADHD or similar. I read the above post as "begging stop writing this accessibility readability" because my eyes dart from one highlighted part to another.
@julia I have diagnosed ADD and have no issues with this. However, I respect that it's different for you. I have recently increased the character limit on my instance, so I will try to avoid inlining hashtags in the future. The character limit was the main reason I placed them within the text instead of at the bottom. Maybe there is a way to make them stand out less in the client you're using?
@fell@julia I have diagnosed ADHD and I find people who write like this to be absolutely insufferable. nobody needs to have 30 hashtags in a reply to post
@fell@julia hashtags go against the culture around here, people don't use it to get famous and get discovered, they use it to talk to people and have conversations, it just feels anti-fedi to me
@Jessica@julia Of course they use them to have conversations, but due to the nature of the Fediverse, if you just post something without any hashtags, unless you have a lot of followers, it will simply vanish. What's the point in talking if nobody is listening?
I don't want to be famous, but I do enjoy when people see what I have to say. If I didn't want people to see it, I would write it in a diary instead.
@Jessica@julia I admit, now that full text search is becoming more widespread, it is less of an issue. But on instances without full text search, posts without any tags are simply impossible to be discovered by strangers.
I guess it would be trivial to technically strip the inline hashtags and duplicate at the end if it were desired, so maybe file an official suggestion for discussion? Though I expect it would be met with a lot of resistance by people partial to this style.
@julia Seems legible enough, imo. Besides, isn't the whole point of hashtags that you can tag terms inline without the need for a whole lot of extra characters?
@julia@Chozo I had not considered that it might be less accessible to people. I generally use inline hashtags to save space, but maybe I should just break it into multiple posts.
@hosford42@julia@Chozo I usually hear folks saying not to do this because screen readers. As a blind screen reader user myself, inline hashtags aren’t a problem for me, and I always use them. I hadn’t considered ADHD. I wish folks spent just a bit less time worrying about screen readers and a bit more time worrying about other disabilities. As far as I’m concerned, if it has alt text, screen readers will be fine.
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