I think hashtags are a agreat idea, but their greatest strength is also their greatest weakness.
The 'followed tags' bar to the left allows you to create your own specialised forum which allows you to source discussions that are specialised to your own specific tastes which is great. Unfotunatley there is nothing available for a more general, varied, sociable discussion.
I think the biggest complaint is that there isnt an area of the site that allows for a higrer traffic, communal area, all the forums and placement of threads are totally reliant on the OPs viewpoint and relation to the topic.
For instance, if I wanted to discuss 'Destiny', all I need to do is search #Destiny and add it to my followed tags and Ive created my own destiny forum, brilliant. The problem is is that someone would have to add #destiny specifically to their post for me to see it. Someone might post some destiny news, art, speculation and feel #news or #community is sufficient enough to make their viewpoint heard.
This means some people who may want to discuss/debate the topic are unaware of the post because they added a hashtag that the OP didnt feel was necessary or even misspelled.
I think the simple fix for this is to make specific hashtags/forums that have always been important to bungie.net and online communities in general, such as community, bungie games, off topic etc. available in a drop down menu that are set in stone.
This means the # system can still do its thing, allowing for more specific, specialised and intimate discussion while still allowing for crossovers into more sociable, high traffic forums made easily accessable through an uncustomisable dropdown menu.
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Someone earlier suggested that it be mandatory to have at least one 'official' tag for a thread. I like that idea. That way if 'Destiny' and 'Offtopic' were two official ones, we'd get one in our search results. Hell, you could make it so one is mandatory and you can ONLY have one, then you don't have to worry about cross-posting there too. Easy.