Entirely unmoderated tags are not an option for lemmy as the moderation workload would be too much. Additionally users being able to type out tags themselves introduces splintering in the tag contents due to typos. A better solution is a curated list of tags users can attach to their posts

I vehemently disagree with the main idea behind this RFC. Just let users put arbitrary tags on their posts and other users can search for whatever tags they want. The rest of the fediverse has unmoderated hashtags and it works fine. I don’t see a good reason hashtags should require moderation. And typos can be corrected by editing the post.

Adding those restrictions just makes this feature more complex than it needs to be and reduces compatibility with the fediverse. Users of any fediverse software can create a post in a lemmy community and those posts may have arbitrary tags. Why should lemmy users have less capability on lemmy than external users?

Finally, hashtags could be a useful way to filter posts within a community if these restrictions are dropped. I posted this in the github thread, but imagine a general programming community. Posts could be tagged with a language, paradigm (OOP, functional, etc), or whatever else to allow users to browse subtopics within a community. Having to request moderators add a tag is an unnecessary extra step.

If you intended RFC to be a reference to IETF RFCs you should now it originally stood for Requests for Comments before simply being referred to as RFCs. (link) I didn’t have to read your document in detail, but it seems reasonable and well thought out.

I’m not sure I understand the value of tags for Lemmy (or Reddit in a similar vein.)

Lemmy’s main (& sole?) dimension of organisation is the concept of “community.” You subscribe to communities to automatically receive their updates on your feed.

Now, tags are going to add another dimension for organisation which allows one to curate their feed w/o subscribing.

The good thing about tags is that they simplify “listening.” No need to keep searching for communities or keep scrolling through your feed to find the content you’re interested in.

The downside of tags, IMO, is that it fundamentally competes w/ the concept of “communities” in the sense that, why would I bother w/ finding communities and “explore”, and consequently, potentially contribute to the content of a community where I can simply listen to tags I’m interested in and forget about the rest.
IMO, the reason that tags (moderated or not) are working so beautifully on Mastodon is the lack of communities: listening is the only option.

I stand to be corrected, but it (tags and communities) very much feels like an either/or situation.

PS: Despite its quality and friendliness, Lemmy’s user base and the content they creates is still small. That means, for the time being, communities may work just fine. As we grow and so does our volume of content, we’d probably need new strategies to augment communities. Though I wouldn’t call that a concern of now or near future.

My 2 cents.