Mastodon: Ability to subscribe or follow tags

[nebulade]

Similarly to following users, it would be great to be able to follow tags, so toots using the followed tags show up in the timeline. Ideally also with an option to show notifications in a similar manner than mentions.

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• [x] I searched or browsed the repo’s other issues to ensure this is not a duplicate.

[nd-]

Yes, that would be nice and very usefull.
But what toots should show up in your home timeline ? local ? federated ? all instances ?

[nebulade]

Good point. I personally would like to see all toots with that tag (federated+local) showing up in my home timeline, so basically the same as toots from people I follow.

[nd-]

Yes, that seems the best way.

[Cassolotl]

Just spotted this on Instagram today:

[Cassolotl]

This topic is almost the same as option to follow hashtags #1096 - they were opened at the same time but #1096 has a lot more detail and discussion. Could this one be closed as a duplicate?

[MirceaKitsune]

I was just about to open an issue for this. This is a feature I've always wanted to see on Twitter: It and other social media networks never chose to implement it, but Mastodon easily could. I use this ability on some art sites and it's been very helpful. I see no downsides to having it, and believe it would help strengthen communities and let users more easily find content of interest as well as other users who share similar interests. Apart from being very helpful it would give Mastodon another unique advantage which might further help with adoption.

I imagine this would be a relatively simple system to implement: Just as an user can follow another user to see what they post, they may also follow tags, causing any post (in the reachable fediverse) containing that tag to appear in their Home timeline the same way. The setting itself can be a simple list, where users add tags they'd like to follow and delete ones they wish to stop following.

[rzr]

Relate-to: https://discourse.joinmastodon.org/t/request-follow-hashtags/1293/14