@feditips Seems like an asinine search engine.

@feditips How hard would it be for someone (who is not me) to write a plugin or tool that can do variant searches? So, "ttrpg" would include "ttrpgs", "rpgs", "tabletopGames", etc. The hard part (from my perspective) would defining the "clusters". e.g. "FinalFantasy14" should include "FF14" and "FFXIV", and exclude "FinalFantasy7", but how about raw "FinalFantasy"? It's very subjective.

(And the problem with multiple hashtags is they consume characters. Even 1K is hard for me to stick to if the topic merits a thoughtful response.)
#hashtags #search #Fediverse

@feditips #MagaGuilt #magaguilt #Magaguilt #magaGuilt examples

@feditips I so wish it wasn't this way. It seems such a waste of everyone's valuable time. And I don't even bother searching Mastodon anymore, I know better to waste my time that way as well.

#Mastodon #search #wastes #everyones #time #I #spend #more #effort #writing #hashtags #than #I #do #generating #actual #content #No #wonder #many #people #gave #up #and #left

@feditips thank you for this. Mastodon has its limitations but it feels like a much more vibrant and inclusive community so far. I never posted much on Twitter and I’m actually having fun on Mastodon.

@feditips

I think I disagree. It's for the person doing the search to try out those variants. We should all use hashtags, but our posts would lose all natural grace if each author were to try to preempt all possible variants of evsry search term.

@feditips It's important to know that the # is not required for searching. You want to find out what people are saying about "potato" put "potato" in the search bar. You don't need #potato #Potatoe #patate #earthapple #pommedeterre #TorontoMapleLeafsPlayoffChances to find it.

@feditips

While we're discussion the ethics and protocols of #Hashtags can we include a hat-tip to #PascalCase and #camelCase -- where at least the first letters of separate words are capitalized in some manner?

Rather than, you know, runningalltheletterstogeterintoonelongunreadablestring?

Maybe?

Please?

@feditips - I honestly tend to scoot right past posts with more than a few hashtags in them. I find them disruptive and difficult to process. I’m not saying folks should use fewer hashtags: this is just an honest data point from a non-power user.

@feditips I know many want full search text, but problem is that adds up to spam search result being shown.

Having hashtag only search works best. It doesn’t eliminate full spam search but it’s a start, and it narrows the search result to what people want.

@feditips Or they could implement better search? Do we want to be *encouraging* this kind of cludgery on principle? 🤔

@feditips This was useful to discover. I actually didn't realize that is how search worked. I get why it's a limitation and I should have realized it before... but... shoot. That is, not as fun, is it?

@feditips Thanks for the clarification.

@feditips Solution: give people the option to do fuzzy searches.
But the devs would have to be good at what they do to implement a setting; clearly they're scared of them.

@feditips Feels like a fatal flaw in the design. But I can see why they wanted to have people look for specific things based on their preferences rather than be bombarded by random articles just cause they were spammed by algorithm favored words.

@feditips First I want to thank you for all of your hard effort for everyone else’s benefit. But I would like to point out what I consider a pertinent distinction. The hashtag search function supports partial string matching. This means I can go and type in #waterc and get a variety of results that all begin with that string such as #watercolor, #watercolors, #watercolours, etc... and can then choose which, some or all to follow.