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         Technology/Gopher, (sdf.org), 12/12/2018
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User logout recently wrote about the use of hashtags in 
gopherspace[1]. He said he wouldn't mind a debate on the 
subject, so I figured I'd write a little something. I can't 
recall if the topic has surfaced on other phlogs, I'll have 
to go looking. 

Also, I don't think I've ever actually noticed hashtags in 
gopherspace (I tune them out, or I can't remember them, I 
don't know which) so this can't possibly be directed at 
anyone (though, I'm going to keep an eye out from now on!) 
Seriously, nothing personal in this, at all.

For my part, I never had a twitter or instagram account, and 
I never had a use for hashtags. They always reminded me of 
AOL keywords (remember those?) and that drove me nuts (never 
really used AOL, but always hated them anyway.) I'm a little 
crusty when it comes to some tech; I won't ever have a use 
for twitter/instagram/hashtags.

So, I'm clearly a biased person, but who isn't? As for the 
technical merits of hashtags, I suppose I can find some. 
When you see them, you see what the author intended as a key 
point of their content. Without having to include any 
particular verbiage in their content itself, they've 
classified it. That doesn't sound like a terrible thing.

Of course, there are always content authors that will abuse 
the system. They want attention, so they cram in ridiculous 
amounts of hashtags that have nothing to do with their 
content.

Then there are the tech-challenged types, who think that a 
hashtag is #anexcusetowritesomebigstupidthingfornoreason. I 
mean, not only is it impossible to read, it's not helpful 
for the searches either! Junk all the way around!

Let's see... benefits.... benefits of hashtags.... Hashtags 
can be funny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57dzaMaouXA

And that's it, I'm out. I can't think of anything else good 
to say about them, and I can't think of anything else bad 
either. They're just a thing some people do. They don't 
really hurt me, they're easy enough to ignore, and they make 
some folks happy. Hopefully floodgap won't go nuclear and 
start ranking search results based on capricious algorithms 
that punish hashtag users, then we'd really be letting 
gopher go to the web-dumpster dogs.

Here are the obligatory hastags for this post, the 5 most 
used words in what I wrote: #I #A #the #to #of

[1] gopher://i-logout.cz:70/0/phlog/12-2018-phlog.txt