I've seen both #foo and !foo used on Mastodon. How do they differ?
@wilfredh I believe the "! foo" syntax is a feature of GNUsocial that adds posts to a group that members can join & monitor. Unfortunately while mastodon & GNUsocial are both originally Ostatus-based & mostly interoperable in theory, mastodon lacks the group functionality. So you'll see GNUsocial posts, but that syntax is stripped of the hastag-like link to the group it would otherwise have.
@paralithode @wilfredh follow-up question. Can you follow gnu social people? I *need* bobrossbot on my federated timeline!
@denis yep! You should be able to follow just the same procedure as following an account from another mastodon instance–which on the web I believe involves clicking 'remote follow' on their profile & entering your account+instance name into a dialog ("denis@nvrlnd.xyz")
@paralithode hum. For some reason using the remote follow didn't work (unable to locate user)
But, looking up bobrossbot@social.guizzyordi.info from my local instance worked!
@wilfredh ! is from GNU social posts. # works on awoos.