For a long time, users have been able to submit microblog-style posts to link-aggregator subs (a.k.a. subcommunity, community, magazine, etc.). Some platforms such as mbin require you to select one for your post. Previously, I’ve thought this sub selection as a special hashtag for the post. However, I’ve recently been reminded that posts actually show up in communities as full-on threads. So what do you (or the threadi gods) consider to be proper etiquette in selecting a proper sub to make your microblog post to? There’s always !random, but that feels kinda worthless…
Even with the Hashtag misuse that’s not as bad as group spam, since people spamming groups can reach further than they otherwise would just spamming on their server. Which is why being able to moderate groups is important. Also with Guppe’s system you can create any group you want without authorization, that’s a problem because malicious people can create groups that aren’t acceptable including ones with racist and illegal content and use it to distribute that across the network. I found a few of these without much digging and I quickly reported them to Mastodon.social and got them suspended but they’re still there on the other servers.
Ah, yeah, that’s messed up.
I’m really happy Mastodon takes their time todevelop new features instead of rushing into things. Makes me hopeful they’ll get it right.