Hey, which #ActivityPub app allows an #emoji to be used as a #hashtag?

First toot was a single 'loose' top-level toot, second one above to the #emoji thread, but no emoji showing in #Mastodon at all in both of these. And opening the link to your toot, leads to a login page on NodeBB.

How did it look on your end?

julian

@[email protected] hashtags aren't linked in-post in NodeBB. They're metadata at the topic level.

But regardless, here's how it looks... and here's the link to the tag page

tyil

@[email protected] I'd assume all of them, emoji are just characters in the end anyway. But the real question is, why would you want this? Its just a less accessible means of using regular words for hashtags.

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

@tyil thus far only streams app supports them.

Why use emoji at all? I'm in favor of a culture that gives more care to emoji's rather than carelessly strewing them around.

They can convey meaning well, like the "boosts appreciated" custom emoji. They can be used in addition to other textual hashtags that aren't always as accessible in their meaning either. There are cultures around emoji use, that give meaning in certain contexts, and those cultures are part of social fabric and cohesion then.

tyil

@[email protected]

thus far only streams app supports them

Seems to work on #MissKey.

They can convey meaning well

If everyone agrees on the meaning of the picture, sure, but this is not the case. Various emojis can have vastly different meanings to different groups of people. If you're also going to add in custom emojis this is going to be even worse, you're throwing around emojis that are literally undefined by the majority of the world population.

With your example "boosts appreciated", making a hashtag BoostsAppreciated is clear, concise, and accessible to all. I've never even heard of a dedicated emoji for this, and if you suddenly started to use those I'd have to wonder what you're trying to convey, and use the alt-text to actually get anywhere. Seems like more hassle than just using text in the first place.

They can be used in addition to other textual hashtags

This is true, but do you expect people to just use double the hashtags going forward? One with readable text, the other in image form which you then have to hope works in every context?

textual hashtags [...] aren't always as accessible in their meaning either

Everyone can make "bad" hashtags, but I don't think making the pool worse is going to improve that. If any, it'd make it worse, now people can make bad hashtags with both text and images.

There are cultures around emoji use, that give meaning in certain contexts, and those cultures are part of social fabric and cohesion then

That sounds like a rather big assumption. Are you aware of any cultures that are currently unable to use hashtags, that have a strict need to use basically any image they can think of? To me this sounds incredibly unlikely, especially in the context of the #Fediverse.

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

@tyil fair points. I am suggesting emoji should be usable as hashtags, but not prescribing how they are best used. Like for public square broadcasts.

I have use cases for them, and they are in the realm of "personal social networking" where people know the context and meaning.

tedu

@smallcircles well of course this works here.

honk.tedunangst.com

(honk.tedunangst.com)

knapjack

@tedu @smallcircles I apologize in advance.

tedu

@knapjack so, it's actually not allowed by the default markdown parser, but that is bypassable with some effort.

I honestly hadn't considered it, but seems easy to fix, too.

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

@tedu @knapjack

Nice thing is that Honk also renders a URL in the Mastodon UI which other apps do not.