Pinboard tags

After more than ten years using Pinboard to tag blog posts, I’ve finally discovered that links to Pinboard tags — for instance,

pinboard.in/u:M.Leddy/t:Nancy

— only work if a reader is signed into a Pinboard account. Without a Pinboard account, that link is useless. You’ll just get a 404 page. Why didn’t I know that before now? Because I’m always signed into my Pinboard account. I assumed that the results were available to anyone.

But there is a way to make Pinboard useful for non-users, by searching for a word or phrase or name instead of a tag:

pinboard.in/search/u:M.Leddy/?query=Nancy

So I’m now adding that kind of link to some posts. The disadvantage: searching finds text as well as tags, so a post that mentions, say, Nancy Reagan, will turn up. (Not that there is one.) The advantage: searching finds text as well as tags, so a word or name or phrase without a tag of its own is findable too. Like, say, Aunt Fritzi’s name.

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September 19, 2021: Pinboard now appears to be working as I always thought it’s supposed to, returning results for tags regardless of whether I’m logged in. I must have encountered a temporary (weeks-long? months-long?) glitch. Never any word from the developer in response to my e-mails about how links to Pinboard tags are supposed to work.