2
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by lgsp@feddit.it to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

While looking for posts with the #degoogle hastag with my mastodon account, I realized that mixed in the hastag timeline there were posts to the !degoogle@lemmy.ml community, but not containing the hastag itself in the text.

I tried to look around, but In wasn't able to find an explanation of how this is supposed to work: is it because of the name of the community that is the same of the hastag? Or is or because the hastag is "embedded" in the community itself?

Edit: for those interested, the explanation is in this comment -> https://lemmy.world/post/39083486/20606028

top 9 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] lordnikon@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Because they're Federated and that's how Lemmy is represented in Mastodon when you Federate between the two

[-] lgsp@feddit.it 0 points 2 months ago

Mmh, that's not an explanation: when I look at an hastag timeline in mastodon, I expect to see all the posts that federate with my server and contain the relevant hastag.

In this case I for sure see also posts that are federated, but, AFAIK, do not contain the hashtag. The only element is the name of the community

[-] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 months ago

According to the protocol they share (ActivityPub) communities and hashtags are essentially the same thing, they're a grouping containing many posts. Typing out a hashtag is how you tell Mastodon to add your post to that "hashtag group" (and you can add your post to multiple hashtags). In Lemmy, the community you post in IS the group (and you can cross-post it to multiple communities). The result is the same. They're the same thing, just different ways of connecting your posts into them, and displayed in very different ways depending on which part of the Fediverse you're using.

[-] 30p87@feddit.org 2 points 2 months ago

The confusing part is that it didn't work most of the time. This seems to be a very recent change. Before, and still now, you could only post to lemmy communities by tagging them with @. Now they federate back, but as hashtags.

[-] MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 months ago

The only element is the name of the community

Consider community names hashtags.

[-] Blaze@piefed.zip 2 points 2 months ago
[-] lgsp@feddit.it 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Ok, clear, thank you.

So this has been implemented as a Lemmy feature for more than one year, and it's default behavioiur ~~a setting for the particular community~~

[-] asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev 1 points 2 months ago

it's a setting for the particular community

No, not really. The devs made it an automatic one. Not ones you can manually assign to a community.

[-] Cris_Color@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Thanks for making this thread, I didn't really realize it worked this way either!

When I've posted to lemmy from mastodon, you "@" the community, treating it like a user which is interesting. The underlying guts of the fediverse are fascinating lol

this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
2 points (100.0% liked)

Fediverse

39067 readers
51 users here now

A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, Mbin, etc).

If you wanted to get help with moderating your own community then head over to !moderators@lemmy.world!

Rules

Learn more at these websites: Join The Fediverse Wiki, Fediverse.info, Wikipedia Page, The Federation Info (Stats), FediDB (Stats), Sub Rehab (Reddit Migration)

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS