@elizschafer @onekade The short answer is that anyone who follows you also copies your posts to their local server, which means then that any search for that hashtag on that local server will turn up your posts.

So since I follow you, if you used #BrooklineTownMeeting in a post, then anyone else on my server kolektiva.social would be able to see your (and my) posts in a search.

That's why your choice of server "kinda doesn't matter" and "kinda does matter". If you had an account on (say) better.boston, like @wutrain, then the local feed is probably already full of local folks. mastodon.social is such a big instance that it will probably end up indexing a big percentage of the total fediverse as well. But the key to getting useful search results is your local community.

@elizschafer I see it! Using #BrooklineTownMeeting or #mapol will help, since hashtags are pretty effective on Mastodon. @leebier is here and a number of other local folks.

@brion @vrandecic @fuzheado @nichtich @evan @mathias Ah, that would solve my problem of how to "correctly" tag #BrooklineTownMeeting : it would be union(Q455752, Q49142). But yeah, the UX on that is *tough*.

#BrooklineMA Fall #TownMeeting has just begun. Apparently it may be our last Town Meeting with a remote participation option. :(
#Brookline #BrooklineTownMeeting