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@Scott Jenson @Stefan Bohacek @Rosy This even raises quite a few questions.
When are you "doing it wrong"? What is the point at which you'll stop "doing it wrong"? What are the minimum requirements for, quote @Rosy, "good alt text"?
If you think you have the definite, all-encompassing answer, have you ever talked about it with someone, preferably with an alt-text activist? Because I'm pretty certain that their minimum requirements for "good alt text" and not "doing it wrong" are different from yours. Ask someone else, and their minimum requirements are different yet again.
Still, no matter how they define the minimum for "good alt text" and not "doing it wrong", you'll have to fulfill that to keep your dignity and your reputation, not to mention your reach.
This is why I try to play by all the rules when describing images. This is why I carefully choose between rules that contradict each other. This is why I take such a lot of things into consideration whenever I describe an image.
This, in fact, is why I haven't posted an actually original image in almost two years because the effort is so enormous.
And this is why I'm actually working on a wiki about alt-texts and image descriptions in the Fediverse. It'll have over 50 pages, and it uses more than 50 references all over the Web already now.
Now, what if I told you that you can even be lectured or sanctioned or insulted or blocked outright for not having good enough alt-text behind an image that you've posted several years ago? And that my images aren't auto-purged after a certain time?
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta -
@Sam 🐛 @Robert Kingett It'd be a lot easier if the fully sighted alt-text enforcers on Mastodon had the same standards for good image descriptions as the blind or visually-impaired users. And their standards usually aren't tremendously high.
But they go by their own standards. They don't even all have the same standards because they don't talk to each other. At least some of them keep raising their standards. One of their sources for what makes good image descriptions is, no, not the W3C, but Mastodon itself. Mastodon where alt-texts of well over 1,000 characters are cheered for. And you never know who of them discovers which of the many alt-text guides out there as their new reference.
Worse yet: They don't just sanction "sub-standard" new image descriptions. They may just as well sanction "sub-standard" image descriptions in posts that are several years old already.
At the end of the day, the only way for us to survive is by taking all these guides into consideration, try hard to comply with them all and overcomply with these people's standards so that our image descriptions are still good enough in four, five or more years. Where I am, images aren't generally automatically purged after a year or a few, neither are posts, so a many-years-old post with an image description that's less than optimal by today's standards, whatever these may be, may always come back to bite you.
The alternative would be to go around and update all your image descriptions whenever you find that someone has some minimum quality requirements that your image descriptions don't fulfill. And that's tedious and may send your edited posts around anew even if they themselves are outdated by topic.
As someone who posts images, you have the choice. Either you go to extremes, and you make sure that your image descriptions are good enough by anyone's standards and will be for as long as they remain available in the Fediverse. Or you end up being attacked, insulted, ostracised and blocked for not having tried hard enough.
And seriously, those who regularly lecture people who post images about the importance of alt-texts or even attack anyone who doesn't supply good enough alt-texts, I've never seen any of them do the same when someone has written a too long alt-text or a too detailed image description. Not even once.
Yes, extremely long image descriptions are rather inconvenient for those who actually need them due to disabilities. But it isn't their wrath that you have to fear. And if I knew how to fully cater to everyone's needs all the same, you can believe me I'd tell you how, not to mention try my hardest to do just that myself. It's just that that's impossible.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta -
@Sam 🐛 @Robert Kingett It'd be a lot easier if the fully sighted alt-text enforcers on Mastodon had the same standards for good image descriptions as the blind or visually-impaired users. And their standards usually aren't tremendously high.
But they go by their own standards. They don't even all have the same standards because they don't talk to each other. At least some of them keep raising their standards. One of their sources for what makes good image descriptions is, no, not the W3C, but Mastodon itself. Mastodon where alt-texts of well over 1,000 characters are cheered for. And you never know who of them discovers which of the many alt-text guides out there as their new reference.
Worse yet: They don't just sanction "sub-standard" new image descriptions. They may just as well sanction "sub-standard" image descriptions in posts that are several years old already.
At the end of the day, the only way for us to survive is by taking all these guides into consideration, try hard to comply with them all and overcomply with these people's standards so that our image descriptions are still good enough in four, five or more years. Where I am, images aren't generally automatically purged after a year or a few, neither are posts, so a many-years-old post with an image description that's less than optimal by today's standards, whatever these may be, may always come back to bite you.
The alternative would be to go around and update all your image descriptions whenever you find that someone has some minimum quality requirements that your image descriptions don't fulfill. And that's tedious and may send your edited posts around anew even if they themselves are outdated by topic.
As someone who posts images, you have the choice. Either you go to extremes, and you make sure that your image descriptions are good enough by anyone's standards and will be for as long as they remain available in the Fediverse. Or you end up being attacked, insulted, ostracised and blocked for not having tried hard enough.
And seriously, those who regularly lecture people who post images about the importance of alt-texts or even attack anyone who doesn't supply good enough alt-texts, I've never seen any of them do the same when someone has written a too long alt-text or a too detailed image description. Not even once.
Yes, extremely long image descriptions are rather inconvenient for those who actually need them due to disabilities. But it isn't their wrath that you have to fear. And if I knew how to fully cater to everyone's needs all the same, you can believe me I'd tell you how, not to mention try my hardest to do just that myself. It's just that that's impossible.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta -
@Sam 🐛 @Robert Kingett It'd be a lot easier if the fully sighted alt-text enforcers on Mastodon had the same standards for good image descriptions as the blind or visually-impaired users. And their standards usually aren't tremendously high.
But they go by their own standards. They don't even all have the same standards because they don't talk to each other. At least some of them keep raising their standards. One of their sources for what makes good image descriptions is, no, not the W3C, but Mastodon itself. Mastodon where alt-texts of well over 1,000 characters are cheered for. And you never know who of them discovers which of the many alt-text guides out there as their new reference.
Worse yet: They don't just sanction "sub-standard" new image descriptions. They may just as well sanction "sub-standard" image descriptions in posts that are several years old already.
At the end of the day, the only way for us to survive is by taking all these guides into consideration, try hard to comply with them all and overcomply with these people's standards so that our image descriptions are still good enough in four, five or more years. Where I am, images aren't generally automatically purged after a year or a few, neither are posts, so a many-years-old post with an image description that's less than optimal by today's standards, whatever these may be, may always come back to bite you.
The alternative would be to go around and update all your image descriptions whenever you find that someone has some minimum quality requirements that your image descriptions don't fulfill. And that's tedious and may send your edited posts around anew even if they themselves are outdated by topic.
As someone who posts images, you have the choice. Either you go to extremes, and you make sure that your image descriptions are good enough by anyone's standards and will be for as long as they remain available in the Fediverse. Or you end up being attacked, insulted, ostracised and blocked for not having tried hard enough.
And seriously, those who regularly lecture people who post images about the importance of alt-texts or even attack anyone who doesn't supply good enough alt-texts, I've never seen any of them do the same when someone has written a too long alt-text or a too detailed image description. Not even once.
Yes, extremely long image descriptions are rather inconvenient for those who actually need them due to disabilities. But it isn't their wrath that you have to fear. And if I knew how to fully cater to everyone's needs all the same, you can believe me I'd tell you how, not to mention try my hardest to do just that myself. It's just that that's impossible.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta -
@Emily Vale, Gendermancer An image description should never start with "Photo of". See here.
Especially alt-texts should be kept short. The digital photograph is considered a default nowadays, so mentioning that an image is a digital photograph is superfluous and should be avoided.
All other media, on the other hand, should be mentioned.
#AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #FediTips #AltTextTips -
@Emily Vale, Gendermancer An image description should never start with "Photo of". See here.
Especially alt-texts should be kept short. The digital photograph is considered a default nowadays, so mentioning that an image is a digital photograph is superfluous and should be avoided.
All other media, on the other hand, should be mentioned.
#AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #FediTips #AltTextTips -
@Emily Vale, Gendermancer An image description should never start with "Photo of". See here.
Especially alt-texts should be kept short. The digital photograph is considered a default nowadays, so mentioning that an image is a digital photograph is superfluous and should be avoided.
All other media, on the other hand, should be mentioned.
#AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #FediTips #AltTextTips -
@Emily Vale, Gendermancer An image description should never start with "Photo of". See here.
Especially alt-texts should be kept short. The digital photograph is considered a default nowadays, so mentioning that an image is a digital photograph is superfluous and should be avoided.
All other media, on the other hand, should be mentioned.
#AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #FediTips #AltTextTips -
@valkyrie_pilot That's a good question.
The rule (I understand it as one) says that text must always be transcribed 100% verbatim, i.e. absolutely identical to the original. However, this already collides with the rules that image descriptions must not contain all caps because they tend to irritate screen readers, and that acronyms must be handled in a way that screen readers can deal with in a sensible way.
I guess, and I can only guess, that misspellings should be corrected when transcribing text, especially in alt-text.
In earlier image descriptions, all of which are long descriptions in the post text, I've transcribed misspellings as well and even added a "(sic!)" after them to point out that it wasn't me who misspelled it. However, doing so amounts to pointing out the misspellings, as would correcting them in the transcript and then explaining which words are misspelled in which way, even though would conform more with the "always transcribe verbatim" rule. Also, I've since declared these descriptions obsolete.
Unfortunately, I can't find any online resources about alt-texts and image descriptions that even only take misspellings in to-be-transcribed text into consideration, much less define how to deal with them. It's just like text that's unreadable in the image, but that can be sourced elsewhere: It's commonly treated like it doesn't exist.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta -
@valkyrie_pilot That's a good question.
The rule (I understand it as one) says that text must always be transcribed 100% verbatim, i.e. absolutely identical to the original. However, this already collides with the rules that image descriptions must not contain all caps because they tend to irritate screen readers, and that acronyms must be handled in a way that screen readers can deal with in a sensible way.
I guess, and I can only guess, that misspellings should be corrected when transcribing text, especially in alt-text.
In earlier image descriptions, all of which are long descriptions in the post text, I've transcribed misspellings as well and even added a "(sic!)" after them to point out that it wasn't me who misspelled it. However, doing so amounts to pointing out the misspellings, as would correcting them in the transcript and then explaining which words are misspelled in which way, even though would conform more with the "always transcribe verbatim" rule. Also, I've since declared these descriptions obsolete.
Unfortunately, I can't find any online resources about alt-texts and image descriptions that even only take misspellings in to-be-transcribed text into consideration, much less define how to deal with them. It's just like text that's unreadable in the image, but that can be sourced elsewhere: It's commonly treated like it doesn't exist.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta -
@Leonardo Giovanni Scur First of all, it isn't about my requirements. Just like, surprise, surprise, Mastodon's alt-text police is not blind.
It's about general accessibility. And it's about Mastodon users acting inclusively towards blind or visually-impaired people and, at the same time, ableistically towards people with other physical disabilities. Just because they cling hard to the extra 1,500 characters that alt-text gives them per image to their meagre character count for posts.
Except for professional Web accessibility experts, literally nobody on Mastodon seems to know what alt-text really is for. Alt-text is meant to be a 1:1 stand-in for an image, in case the image can't be perceived for whichever reason.
Alt-text is not meant to be an additional source of information beyond what information the image conveys.
Mastodon's use of alt-text for extra information beyond the post character limit is just as much alt-text misuse as cramming alt-text with keywords for SEO on websites. Unfortunately, it is so deeply engrained into Mastodon's culture that even the Mastodon devs have played along and added that "ALT" button which most Mastodon users think is the default and the standard Fediverse-wide now.
But let me tell you something:
Mastodon and its forks are most likely the only Fediverse server applications with an alt-text button. And they're far from making up the whole Fediverse.
Misskey and its various forks don't have an alt-text button.
AFAIK, Pleroma-FE and Akkoma-FE don't have an alt-text button, and neither has Mangane.
Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams), Forte, they all don't have an alt-text button.
Lemmy doesn't have an alt-text button. /kbin and Mbin don't have an alt-text button. PieFed doesn't have an alt-text button.
WriteFreely doesn't have an alt-text button. Plume doesn't have an alt-text button. WordPress doesn't have an alt-text button either.
Blogs in general don't have an alt-text button. Forums don't have an alt-text button. Static websites don't have an alt-text button.
Twitter/𝕏 doesn't have an alt-text button. Facebook doesn't have an alt-text button. Instagram doesn't have an alt-text button. Threads doesn't have an alt-text button. Tumblr doesn't have an alt-text button. Flickr doesn't have an alt-text button. Pinterest doesn't have an alt-text button. And so forth.
The W3C doesn't mention alt-text buttons. The WCAG don't mention alt-text buttons.
Why not? Because they're all way behind Mastodon in accessibility?
No, but because their developers know that alt-text is not an additional source of information for sighted people.
Literally the only place anywhere in the Web where alt-text both counts and is actively used as an additional source of information for sighted people is Mastodon. Plus its forks.
How I handle that? I put all needed extra information into the post text. But I'm not on Mastodon. I'm on Hubzilla. My character limit is over 30,000 times higher than on Mastodon.
Seriously, if missing alt-text is sanctioned as ableist, if useless alt-text is sanctioned as ableist, if inaccurate alt-text is sanctioned as ableist, if too lacking alt-text is sanctioned as ableist, then putting exclusive information into alt-text must be sanctioned as ableist just as well.
To those on Mastodon who oh so desperately need more than 500 characters: Move someplace in the Fediverse that has more than 500 characters. There's Fediverse server software from 3,000 characters to over 24,000,000 characters that, nonetheless, is federated with Mastodon.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #Ableism #AbleismMeta #CWAbleismMeta -
@Hazelnoot My goal is to get alt-texts and image descriptions right. As right as possible.
My goal is to not be sanctioned and/or lectured by the alt-text police for allegedly being lazy and/or careless.
In order to achieve that, I must be ahead of everyone's requirements. Whatever these requirements may be.
But in order to achieve that, I must know their requirements. Everyone's requirements.
If you want me to follow your rules, I need to know your rules.
Right now, I'm probably vastly overcompliant with everyone's rules with only a few exceptions that I can't comply with (alt-texts must not be longer than 200 or 125 or 100 characters, posts in the Fediverse must not be longer than 500 characters, all of the text in an image must always be transcribed in the alt-text etc.).
This way, I hope that my image posts will stay in compliance with existing image description quality standards for a few years, and when they no longer are, they're so old that nobody demands I upgrade my image descriptions to then-current standards.
tl;dr: "Just do it" doesn't cut it. Just doing it is likely to get you sanctioned because you don't do it well enough. And something is no longer better than nothing.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@Hazelnoot My goal is to get alt-texts and image descriptions right. As right as possible.
My goal is to not be sanctioned and/or lectured by the alt-text police for allegedly being lazy and/or careless.
In order to achieve that, I must be ahead of everyone's requirements. Whatever these requirements may be.
But in order to achieve that, I must know their requirements. Everyone's requirements.
If you want me to follow your rules, I need to know your rules.
Right now, I'm probably vastly overcompliant with everyone's rules with only a few exceptions that I can't comply with (alt-texts must not be longer than 200 or 125 or 100 characters, posts in the Fediverse must not be longer than 500 characters, all of the text in an image must always be transcribed in the alt-text etc.).
This way, I hope that my image posts will stay in compliance with existing image description quality standards for a few years, and when they no longer are, they're so old that nobody demands I upgrade my image descriptions to then-current standards.
tl;dr: "Just do it" doesn't cut it. Just doing it is likely to get you sanctioned because you don't do it well enough. And something is no longer better than nothing.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@Hazelnoot My goal is to get alt-texts and image descriptions right. As right as possible.
My goal is to not be sanctioned and/or lectured by the alt-text police for allegedly being lazy and/or careless.
In order to achieve that, I must be ahead of everyone's requirements. Whatever these requirements may be.
But in order to achieve that, I must know their requirements. Everyone's requirements.
If you want me to follow your rules, I need to know your rules.
Right now, I'm probably vastly overcompliant with everyone's rules with only a few exceptions that I can't comply with (alt-texts must not be longer than 200 or 125 or 100 characters, posts in the Fediverse must not be longer than 500 characters, all of the text in an image must always be transcribed in the alt-text etc.).
This way, I hope that my image posts will stay in compliance with existing image description quality standards for a few years, and when they no longer are, they're so old that nobody demands I upgrade my image descriptions to then-current standards.
tl;dr: "Just do it" doesn't cut it. Just doing it is likely to get you sanctioned because you don't do it well enough. And something is no longer better than nothing.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@Hazelnoot My goal is to get alt-texts and image descriptions right. As right as possible.
My goal is to not be sanctioned and/or lectured by the alt-text police for allegedly being lazy and/or careless.
In order to achieve that, I must be ahead of everyone's requirements. Whatever these requirements may be.
But in order to achieve that, I must know their requirements. Everyone's requirements.
If you want me to follow your rules, I need to know your rules.
Right now, I'm probably vastly overcompliant with everyone's rules with only a few exceptions that I can't comply with (alt-texts must not be longer than 200 or 125 or 100 characters, posts in the Fediverse must not be longer than 500 characters, all of the text in an image must always be transcribed in the alt-text etc.).
This way, I hope that my image posts will stay in compliance with existing image description quality standards for a few years, and when they no longer are, they're so old that nobody demands I upgrade my image descriptions to then-current standards.
tl;dr: "Just do it" doesn't cut it. Just doing it is likely to get you sanctioned because you don't do it well enough. And something is no longer better than nothing.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@[18+!!] saph I'm not an artist, but I really need to know the definition of "helpful" in the context of "helpful alt-text". What are the requirements for alt-text to count as "helpful"?
It must be 100% accurate, I guess that's a given. This also means that it must be 100% written by hand as opposed to AI-generated.
But what are the minimum requirements in terms of details for an alt-text to be helpful?
Can alt-text be too long/too detailed to be helpful?
I'm going to limit my alt-texts to a maximum of 512 characters. Misskey, Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS and the other Misskey forks automatically delete any alt-text that's longer than 512 characters, making it appear like I hadn't provided any alt-text to begin with, that's why. Newspaper scans aside, can alt-text with no more than 512 characters be too lacking in detail to be helpful?
What if, in addition to an alt-text with a maximum of 512 characters, I also provide a much longer and much more detailed image description in the post text? (My character limit is not 500, but over 16.7 million. I can post long descriptions with tens of thousands of characters in one piece, and I have done so in the past.)
Would that be acceptable to provide the details in description that do not fit into an alt-text of no more than 512 characters?
Or is that unacceptable because the description in the alt-text must be as detailed as required, and additional descriptions in the post don't count?
Or is that unacceptable because there must only be one description to each image, namely in the alt-text and only in the alt-text?
Or is that unacceptable because it makes my post longer than 500 characters?
Are explanations and other additional information about the image allowed in the post text? Because they are not allowed in the alt-text because some people cannot access alt-text.
Or must explanations etc. absolutely be in the alt-text in order for the alt-text to be "helpful" enough?
Must they even be only in the alt-text so that the post never exceeds 500 characters?
What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 512 characters? What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 1,500 characters either, but I absolutely must describe and explain them in the alt-text?
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters -
@[18+!!] saph I'm not an artist, but I really need to know the definition of "helpful" in the context of "helpful alt-text". What are the requirements for alt-text to count as "helpful"?
It must be 100% accurate, I guess that's a given. This also means that it must be 100% written by hand as opposed to AI-generated.
But what are the minimum requirements in terms of details for an alt-text to be helpful?
Can alt-text be too long/too detailed to be helpful?
I'm going to limit my alt-texts to a maximum of 512 characters. Misskey, Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS and the other Misskey forks automatically delete any alt-text that's longer than 512 characters, making it appear like I hadn't provided any alt-text to begin with, that's why. Newspaper scans aside, can alt-text with no more than 512 characters be too lacking in detail to be helpful?
What if, in addition to an alt-text with a maximum of 512 characters, I also provide a much longer and much more detailed image description in the post text? (My character limit is not 500, but over 16.7 million. I can post long descriptions with tens of thousands of characters in one piece, and I have done so in the past.)
Would that be acceptable to provide the details in description that do not fit into an alt-text of no more than 512 characters?
Or is that unacceptable because the description in the alt-text must be as detailed as required, and additional descriptions in the post don't count?
Or is that unacceptable because there must only be one description to each image, namely in the alt-text and only in the alt-text?
Or is that unacceptable because it makes my post longer than 500 characters?
Are explanations and other additional information about the image allowed in the post text? Because they are not allowed in the alt-text because some people cannot access alt-text.
Or must explanations etc. absolutely be in the alt-text in order for the alt-text to be "helpful" enough?
Must they even be only in the alt-text so that the post never exceeds 500 characters?
What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 512 characters? What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 1,500 characters either, but I absolutely must describe and explain them in the alt-text?
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters -
@[18+!!] saph I'm not an artist, but I really need to know the definition of "helpful" in the context of "helpful alt-text". What are the requirements for alt-text to count as "helpful"?
It must be 100% accurate, I guess that's a given. This also means that it must be 100% written by hand as opposed to AI-generated.
But what are the minimum requirements in terms of details for an alt-text to be helpful?
Can alt-text be too long/too detailed to be helpful?
I'm going to limit my alt-texts to a maximum of 512 characters. Misskey, Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS and the other Misskey forks automatically delete any alt-text that's longer than 512 characters, making it appear like I hadn't provided any alt-text to begin with, that's why. Newspaper scans aside, can alt-text with no more than 512 characters be too lacking in detail to be helpful?
What if, in addition to an alt-text with a maximum of 512 characters, I also provide a much longer and much more detailed image description in the post text? (My character limit is not 500, but over 16.7 million. I can post long descriptions with tens of thousands of characters in one piece, and I have done so in the past.)
Would that be acceptable to provide the details in description that do not fit into an alt-text of no more than 512 characters?
Or is that unacceptable because the description in the alt-text must be as detailed as required, and additional descriptions in the post don't count?
Or is that unacceptable because there must only be one description to each image, namely in the alt-text and only in the alt-text?
Or is that unacceptable because it makes my post longer than 500 characters?
Are explanations and other additional information about the image allowed in the post text? Because they are not allowed in the alt-text because some people cannot access alt-text.
Or must explanations etc. absolutely be in the alt-text in order for the alt-text to be "helpful" enough?
Must they even be only in the alt-text so that the post never exceeds 500 characters?
What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 512 characters? What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 1,500 characters either, but I absolutely must describe and explain them in the alt-text?
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters -
@[18+!!] saph I'm not an artist, but I really need to know the definition of "helpful" in the context of "helpful alt-text". What are the requirements for alt-text to count as "helpful"?
It must be 100% accurate, I guess that's a given. This also means that it must be 100% written by hand as opposed to AI-generated.
But what are the minimum requirements in terms of details for an alt-text to be helpful?
Can alt-text be too long/too detailed to be helpful?
I'm going to limit my alt-texts to a maximum of 512 characters. Misskey, Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS and the other Misskey forks automatically delete any alt-text that's longer than 512 characters, making it appear like I hadn't provided any alt-text to begin with, that's why. Newspaper scans aside, can alt-text with no more than 512 characters be too lacking in detail to be helpful?
What if, in addition to an alt-text with a maximum of 512 characters, I also provide a much longer and much more detailed image description in the post text? (My character limit is not 500, but over 16.7 million. I can post long descriptions with tens of thousands of characters in one piece, and I have done so in the past.)
Would that be acceptable to provide the details in description that do not fit into an alt-text of no more than 512 characters?
Or is that unacceptable because the description in the alt-text must be as detailed as required, and additional descriptions in the post don't count?
Or is that unacceptable because there must only be one description to each image, namely in the alt-text and only in the alt-text?
Or is that unacceptable because it makes my post longer than 500 characters?
Are explanations and other additional information about the image allowed in the post text? Because they are not allowed in the alt-text because some people cannot access alt-text.
Or must explanations etc. absolutely be in the alt-text in order for the alt-text to be "helpful" enough?
Must they even be only in the alt-text so that the post never exceeds 500 characters?
What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 512 characters? What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 1,500 characters either, but I absolutely must describe and explain them in the alt-text?
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters -
@hosh The alt-text police of the Mastodon Home Owners' Association (Mastodon HOA) have a tendency to be overzealous. And they don't talk to each other. They all act for themselves as lone wolves with exactly no coordination amongst each other whatsoever. You never know what kinds of rules they whip up for themselves.
Chances are that they only let image descriptions count that come directly with the image. If they acknowledge an image description outside the alt-text, it must be in the post itself. Not as an external link, but the description text itself.
Besides, at least some in the Mastodon HOA have problems with external links. And I don't just mean that they don't trust embedded links whose URL they can't see in plain sight, the kind that Hubzilla can create and Mastodon can't (not that Hubzilla couldn't fake a plain-sight link by embedding a different URL than the visible).
I don't mean either that probably a majority of Mastodon users don't even recognise embedded links without a visible URL as such because they don't know that such a thing can exist in the Fediverse, because Mastodon can't make them.
No, what I mean is the notion that external links for explanations are inherently bad from an accessibility point of view. "Mastodon" (as in how Mastodon users experience the Fediverse, i.e. the Mastodon Web UI or any of the popular mobile phone apps) is sufficiently accessible. But the Web outside of "Mastodon" (same definition again) may not be accessible enough.
A few years ago, I've literally read a Mastodon toot in which someone said that explanations must not be linked to. Linked websites have a risk of not being accessible. Explanations must always be directly in the same post. Apparently, they thought that everything and anything can be explained and broken down until everyone understands it within 500 characters.
This is also why Mastodon users tend to explain their images in the alt-text. It's only there where they have at least halfway enough characters for an explanation, 1,500 per image as opposed to usually only 500 in the post text. (On Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, the alt-text is a separate database field that exists separately for each of the up to four images per message.)
That is, explanations must never go into the alt-text because there are people who cannot open alt-texts to read them. But nobody on Mastodon knows that.
It should be obvious that what counts for explanations counts for visual descriptions just as well.
And in fact, regarding Hubzilla articles, they're actually right. I've once pointed an actually blind screen reader user to an article on my Hubzilla channel. She said she couldn't even navigate the Web interface. She literally couldn't get to the text body of the article to have it read out by her screen reader.
Hubzilla's Web interface, no matter which app is opened, is not accessible. It does not work with screen readers. It's largely still stuck in 2012 when nobdy made any ruckus about the accessibility of hobbyist Web projects.
The only reason why at least some blind or visually-impaired users can read our Hubzilla posts and comments and DMs is because they're all on Mastodon, and they read our content either on Mastodon's Web UI or a Mastodon app that supports screen readers. But they do not read our content at the source. Because they can't.
I actually took into consideration linking to my long image descriptions. But my idea was not to link to a Hubzilla article, nor to a Hubzilla wiki or a Hubzilla card. No, my idea was to write a plain HTML document, upload it to my file space and link to that.
I've dropped that idea for various reasons:- Generally, still, external links are frowned upon.
- I don't know if plain HTML is accessible without a CSS. And I can't add a CSS to this HTML if the HTML document is not served to the recipient by a Web server, but by a file server.
- I don't know how Google Chrome on Android or Safari on an iPhone will react when they access an HTML document on a file space. Will they display it as a website? Or will they download it onto the device as a file without opening it because, again, it is served to them not by a Web server, but by a file server?
- Mobile users dislike opening websites from apps because they dislike their browser popping open. And on Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, almost everyone is on a phone and a dedicated app almost all the time.
- This also means that mobile users would have the image and the description in two separate apps. The image in their Mastodon app, the description in their browser.
- I would need much more description.
Right now, when I have multiple images, my long descriptions consist of a preamble that contains all necessary explanations and, if applicable, visual descriptions of elements that are common to all images. The individual descriptions for each image follow.
But if I had one image description file per image, then each image description would need the whole preamble included. I can't just add the preamble to the first description file.
What if someone opens the third description file first? They'll only have a very incomplete description. And linking to the first description file is inconvenient. I would have to know the URL of the first file before completing and uploading the other files because I'd have to include the URL of the first file in them. And the users would have to have three documents open (the image post, the description of the image they're interested in, the description of the first image with the preamble) just to experience one image. Spread across two phone apps.
And that's why I can't put my additional long description in an external document.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@hosh The alt-text police of the Mastodon Home Owners' Association (Mastodon HOA) have a tendency to be overzealous. And they don't talk to each other. They all act for themselves as lone wolves with exactly no coordination amongst each other whatsoever. You never know what kinds of rules they whip up for themselves.
Chances are that they only let image descriptions count that come directly with the image. If they acknowledge an image description outside the alt-text, it must be in the post itself. Not as an external link, but the description text itself.
Besides, at least some in the Mastodon HOA have problems with external links. And I don't just mean that they don't trust embedded links whose URL they can't see in plain sight, the kind that Hubzilla can create and Mastodon can't (not that Hubzilla couldn't fake a plain-sight link by embedding a different URL than the visible).
I don't mean either that probably a majority of Mastodon users don't even recognise embedded links without a visible URL as such because they don't know that such a thing can exist in the Fediverse, because Mastodon can't make them.
No, what I mean is the notion that external links for explanations are inherently bad from an accessibility point of view. "Mastodon" (as in how Mastodon users experience the Fediverse, i.e. the Mastodon Web UI or any of the popular mobile phone apps) is sufficiently accessible. But the Web outside of "Mastodon" (same definition again) may not be accessible enough.
A few years ago, I've literally read a Mastodon toot in which someone said that explanations must not be linked to. Linked websites have a risk of not being accessible. Explanations must always be directly in the same post. Apparently, they thought that everything and anything can be explained and broken down until everyone understands it within 500 characters.
This is also why Mastodon users tend to explain their images in the alt-text. It's only there where they have at least halfway enough characters for an explanation, 1,500 per image as opposed to usually only 500 in the post text. (On Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, the alt-text is a separate database field that exists separately for each of the up to four images per message.)
That is, explanations must never go into the alt-text because there are people who cannot open alt-texts to read them. But nobody on Mastodon knows that.
It should be obvious that what counts for explanations counts for visual descriptions just as well.
And in fact, regarding Hubzilla articles, they're actually right. I've once pointed an actually blind screen reader user to an article on my Hubzilla channel. She said she couldn't even navigate the Web interface. She literally couldn't get to the text body of the article to have it read out by her screen reader.
Hubzilla's Web interface, no matter which app is opened, is not accessible. It does not work with screen readers. It's largely still stuck in 2012 when nobdy made any ruckus about the accessibility of hobbyist Web projects.
The only reason why at least some blind or visually-impaired users can read our Hubzilla posts and comments and DMs is because they're all on Mastodon, and they read our content either on Mastodon's Web UI or a Mastodon app that supports screen readers. But they do not read our content at the source. Because they can't.
I actually took into consideration linking to my long image descriptions. But my idea was not to link to a Hubzilla article, nor to a Hubzilla wiki or a Hubzilla card. No, my idea was to write a plain HTML document, upload it to my file space and link to that.
I've dropped that idea for various reasons:- Generally, still, external links are frowned upon.
- I don't know if plain HTML is accessible without a CSS. And I can't add a CSS to this HTML if the HTML document is not served to the recipient by a Web server, but by a file server.
- I don't know how Google Chrome on Android or Safari on an iPhone will react when they access an HTML document on a file space. Will they display it as a website? Or will they download it onto the device as a file without opening it because, again, it is served to them not by a Web server, but by a file server?
- Mobile users dislike opening websites from apps because they dislike their browser popping open. And on Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, almost everyone is on a phone and a dedicated app almost all the time.
- This also means that mobile users would have the image and the description in two separate apps. The image in their Mastodon app, the description in their browser.
- I would need much more description.
Right now, when I have multiple images, my long descriptions consist of a preamble that contains all necessary explanations and, if applicable, visual descriptions of elements that are common to all images. The individual descriptions for each image follow.
But if I had one image description file per image, then each image description would need the whole preamble included. I can't just add the preamble to the first description file.
What if someone opens the third description file first? They'll only have a very incomplete description. And linking to the first description file is inconvenient. I would have to know the URL of the first file before completing and uploading the other files because I'd have to include the URL of the first file in them. And the users would have to have three documents open (the image post, the description of the image they're interested in, the description of the first image with the preamble) just to experience one image. Spread across two phone apps.
And that's why I can't put my additional long description in an external document.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@hosh The alt-text police of the Mastodon Home Owners' Association (Mastodon HOA) have a tendency to be overzealous. And they don't talk to each other. They all act for themselves as lone wolves with exactly no coordination amongst each other whatsoever. You never know what kinds of rules they whip up for themselves.
Chances are that they only let image descriptions count that come directly with the image. If they acknowledge an image description outside the alt-text, it must be in the post itself. Not as an external link, but the description text itself.
Besides, at least some in the Mastodon HOA have problems with external links. And I don't just mean that they don't trust embedded links whose URL they can't see in plain sight, the kind that Hubzilla can create and Mastodon can't (not that Hubzilla couldn't fake a plain-sight link by embedding a different URL than the visible).
I don't mean either that probably a majority of Mastodon users don't even recognise embedded links without a visible URL as such because they don't know that such a thing can exist in the Fediverse, because Mastodon can't make them.
No, what I mean is the notion that external links for explanations are inherently bad from an accessibility point of view. "Mastodon" (as in how Mastodon users experience the Fediverse, i.e. the Mastodon Web UI or any of the popular mobile phone apps) is sufficiently accessible. But the Web outside of "Mastodon" (same definition again) may not be accessible enough.
A few years ago, I've literally read a Mastodon toot in which someone said that explanations must not be linked to. Linked websites have a risk of not being accessible. Explanations must always be directly in the same post. Apparently, they thought that everything and anything can be explained and broken down until everyone understands it within 500 characters.
This is also why Mastodon users tend to explain their images in the alt-text. It's only there where they have at least halfway enough characters for an explanation, 1,500 per image as opposed to usually only 500 in the post text. (On Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, the alt-text is a separate database field that exists separately for each of the up to four images per message.)
That is, explanations must never go into the alt-text because there are people who cannot open alt-texts to read them. But nobody on Mastodon knows that.
It should be obvious that what counts for explanations counts for visual descriptions just as well.
And in fact, regarding Hubzilla articles, they're actually right. I've once pointed an actually blind screen reader user to an article on my Hubzilla channel. She said she couldn't even navigate the Web interface. She literally couldn't get to the text body of the article to have it read out by her screen reader.
Hubzilla's Web interface, no matter which app is opened, is not accessible. It does not work with screen readers. It's largely still stuck in 2012 when nobdy made any ruckus about the accessibility of hobbyist Web projects.
The only reason why at least some blind or visually-impaired users can read our Hubzilla posts and comments and DMs is because they're all on Mastodon, and they read our content either on Mastodon's Web UI or a Mastodon app that supports screen readers. But they do not read our content at the source. Because they can't.
I actually took into consideration linking to my long image descriptions. But my idea was not to link to a Hubzilla article, nor to a Hubzilla wiki or a Hubzilla card. No, my idea was to write a plain HTML document, upload it to my file space and link to that.
I've dropped that idea for various reasons:- Generally, still, external links are frowned upon.
- I don't know if plain HTML is accessible without a CSS. And I can't add a CSS to this HTML if the HTML document is not served to the recipient by a Web server, but by a file server.
- I don't know how Google Chrome on Android or Safari on an iPhone will react when they access an HTML document on a file space. Will they display it as a website? Or will they download it onto the device as a file without opening it because, again, it is served to them not by a Web server, but by a file server?
- Mobile users dislike opening websites from apps because they dislike their browser popping open. And on Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, almost everyone is on a phone and a dedicated app almost all the time.
- This also means that mobile users would have the image and the description in two separate apps. The image in their Mastodon app, the description in their browser.
- I would need much more description.
Right now, when I have multiple images, my long descriptions consist of a preamble that contains all necessary explanations and, if applicable, visual descriptions of elements that are common to all images. The individual descriptions for each image follow.
But if I had one image description file per image, then each image description would need the whole preamble included. I can't just add the preamble to the first description file.
What if someone opens the third description file first? They'll only have a very incomplete description. And linking to the first description file is inconvenient. I would have to know the URL of the first file before completing and uploading the other files because I'd have to include the URL of the first file in them. And the users would have to have three documents open (the image post, the description of the image they're interested in, the description of the first image with the preamble) just to experience one image. Spread across two phone apps.
And that's why I can't put my additional long description in an external document.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@hosh The alt-text police of the Mastodon Home Owners' Association (Mastodon HOA) have a tendency to be overzealous. And they don't talk to each other. They all act for themselves as lone wolves with exactly no coordination amongst each other whatsoever. You never know what kinds of rules they whip up for themselves.
Chances are that they only let image descriptions count that come directly with the image. If they acknowledge an image description outside the alt-text, it must be in the post itself. Not as an external link, but the description text itself.
Besides, at least some in the Mastodon HOA have problems with external links. And I don't just mean that they don't trust embedded links whose URL they can't see in plain sight, the kind that Hubzilla can create and Mastodon can't (not that Hubzilla couldn't fake a plain-sight link by embedding a different URL than the visible).
I don't mean either that probably a majority of Mastodon users don't even recognise embedded links without a visible URL as such because they don't know that such a thing can exist in the Fediverse, because Mastodon can't make them.
No, what I mean is the notion that external links for explanations are inherently bad from an accessibility point of view. "Mastodon" (as in how Mastodon users experience the Fediverse, i.e. the Mastodon Web UI or any of the popular mobile phone apps) is sufficiently accessible. But the Web outside of "Mastodon" (same definition again) may not be accessible enough.
A few years ago, I've literally read a Mastodon toot in which someone said that explanations must not be linked to. Linked websites have a risk of not being accessible. Explanations must always be directly in the same post. Apparently, they thought that everything and anything can be explained and broken down until everyone understands it within 500 characters.
This is also why Mastodon users tend to explain their images in the alt-text. It's only there where they have at least halfway enough characters for an explanation, 1,500 per image as opposed to usually only 500 in the post text. (On Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, the alt-text is a separate database field that exists separately for each of the up to four images per message.)
That is, explanations must never go into the alt-text because there are people who cannot open alt-texts to read them. But nobody on Mastodon knows that.
It should be obvious that what counts for explanations counts for visual descriptions just as well.
And in fact, regarding Hubzilla articles, they're actually right. I've once pointed an actually blind screen reader user to an article on my Hubzilla channel. She said she couldn't even navigate the Web interface. She literally couldn't get to the text body of the article to have it read out by her screen reader.
Hubzilla's Web interface, no matter which app is opened, is not accessible. It does not work with screen readers. It's largely still stuck in 2012 when nobdy made any ruckus about the accessibility of hobbyist Web projects.
The only reason why at least some blind or visually-impaired users can read our Hubzilla posts and comments and DMs is because they're all on Mastodon, and they read our content either on Mastodon's Web UI or a Mastodon app that supports screen readers. But they do not read our content at the source. Because they can't.
I actually took into consideration linking to my long image descriptions. But my idea was not to link to a Hubzilla article, nor to a Hubzilla wiki or a Hubzilla card. No, my idea was to write a plain HTML document, upload it to my file space and link to that.
I've dropped that idea for various reasons:- Generally, still, external links are frowned upon.
- I don't know if plain HTML is accessible without a CSS. And I can't add a CSS to this HTML if the HTML document is not served to the recipient by a Web server, but by a file server.
- I don't know how Google Chrome on Android or Safari on an iPhone will react when they access an HTML document on a file space. Will they display it as a website? Or will they download it onto the device as a file without opening it because, again, it is served to them not by a Web server, but by a file server?
- Mobile users dislike opening websites from apps because they dislike their browser popping open. And on Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, almost everyone is on a phone and a dedicated app almost all the time.
- This also means that mobile users would have the image and the description in two separate apps. The image in their Mastodon app, the description in their browser.
- I would need much more description.
Right now, when I have multiple images, my long descriptions consist of a preamble that contains all necessary explanations and, if applicable, visual descriptions of elements that are common to all images. The individual descriptions for each image follow.
But if I had one image description file per image, then each image description would need the whole preamble included. I can't just add the preamble to the first description file.
What if someone opens the third description file first? They'll only have a very incomplete description. And linking to the first description file is inconvenient. I would have to know the URL of the first file before completing and uploading the other files because I'd have to include the URL of the first file in them. And the users would have to have three documents open (the image post, the description of the image they're interested in, the description of the first image with the preamble) just to experience one image. Spread across two phone apps.
And that's why I can't put my additional long description in an external document.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@hosh The alt-text police of the Mastodon Home Owners' Association (Mastodon HOA) have a tendency to be overzealous. And they don't talk to each other. They all act for themselves as lone wolves with exactly no coordination amongst each other whatsoever. You never know what kinds of rules they whip up for themselves.
Chances are that they only let image descriptions count that come directly with the image. If they acknowledge an image description outside the alt-text, it must be in the post itself. Not as an external link, but the description text itself.
Besides, at least some in the Mastodon HOA have problems with external links. And I don't just mean that they don't trust embedded links whose URL they can't see in plain sight, the kind that Hubzilla can create and Mastodon can't (not that Hubzilla couldn't fake a plain-sight link by embedding a different URL than the visible).
I don't mean either that probably a majority of Mastodon users don't even recognise embedded links without a visible URL as such because they don't know that such a thing can exist in the Fediverse, because Mastodon can't make them.
No, what I mean is the notion that external links for explanations are inherently bad from an accessibility point of view. "Mastodon" (as in how Mastodon users experience the Fediverse, i.e. the Mastodon Web UI or any of the popular mobile phone apps) is sufficiently accessible. But the Web outside of "Mastodon" (same definition again) may not be accessible enough.
A few years ago, I've literally read a Mastodon toot in which someone said that explanations must not be linked to. Linked websites have a risk of not being accessible. Explanations must always be directly in the same post. Apparently, they thought that everything and anything can be explained and broken down until everyone understands it within 500 characters.
This is also why Mastodon users tend to explain their images in the alt-text. It's only there where they have at least halfway enough characters for an explanation, 1,500 per image as opposed to usually only 500 in the post text. (On Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, the alt-text is a separate database field that exists separately for each of the up to four images per message.)
That is, explanations must never go into the alt-text because there are people who cannot open alt-texts to read them. But nobody on Mastodon knows that.
It should be obvious that what counts for explanations counts for visual descriptions just as well.
And in fact, regarding Hubzilla articles, they're actually right. I've once pointed an actually blind screen reader user to an article on my Hubzilla channel. She said she couldn't even navigate the Web interface. She literally couldn't get to the text body of the article to have it read out by her screen reader.
Hubzilla's Web interface, no matter which app is opened, is not accessible. It does not work with screen readers. It's largely still stuck in 2012 when nobdy made any ruckus about the accessibility of hobbyist Web projects.
The only reason why at least some blind or visually-impaired users can read our Hubzilla posts and comments and DMs is because they're all on Mastodon, and they read our content either on Mastodon's Web UI or a Mastodon app that supports screen readers. But they do not read our content at the source. Because they can't.
I actually took into consideration linking to my long image descriptions. But my idea was not to link to a Hubzilla article, nor to a Hubzilla wiki or a Hubzilla card. No, my idea was to write a plain HTML document, upload it to my file space and link to that.
I've dropped that idea for various reasons:- Generally, still, external links are frowned upon.
- I don't know if plain HTML is accessible without a CSS. And I can't add a CSS to this HTML if the HTML document is not served to the recipient by a Web server, but by a file server.
- I don't know how Google Chrome on Android or Safari on an iPhone will react when they access an HTML document on a file space. Will they display it as a website? Or will they download it onto the device as a file without opening it because, again, it is served to them not by a Web server, but by a file server?
- Mobile users dislike opening websites from apps because they dislike their browser popping open. And on Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, almost everyone is on a phone and a dedicated app almost all the time.
- This also means that mobile users would have the image and the description in two separate apps. The image in their Mastodon app, the description in their browser.
- I would need much more description.
Right now, when I have multiple images, my long descriptions consist of a preamble that contains all necessary explanations and, if applicable, visual descriptions of elements that are common to all images. The individual descriptions for each image follow.
But if I had one image description file per image, then each image description would need the whole preamble included. I can't just add the preamble to the first description file.
What if someone opens the third description file first? They'll only have a very incomplete description. And linking to the first description file is inconvenient. I would have to know the URL of the first file before completing and uploading the other files because I'd have to include the URL of the first file in them. And the users would have to have three documents open (the image post, the description of the image they're interested in, the description of the first image with the preamble) just to experience one image. Spread across two phone apps.
And that's why I can't put my additional long description in an external document.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@Alt Text Hall of Fame In case you've just heard about it for the first time:
Here it is (and still a WIP).
#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Wiki -
@Alt Text Hall of Fame In case you've just heard about it for the first time:
Here it is (and still a WIP).
#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Wiki -
@Alt Text Hall of Fame In case you've just heard about it for the first time:
Here it is (and still a WIP).
#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Wiki -
@Alt Text Hall of Fame In case you've just heard about it for the first time:
Here it is (and still a WIP).
#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Wiki -
CW: Long posts vs insufficiently described images: I can't win either way; CW: long (over 3,500 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, alt-text meta, image description meta, content warning meta, character limit meta
On the one hand, I have to go out of my way and write two image descriptions for each one of my original images. One is short and goes into the alt-text, and I'm going to limit all my future alt-text to a maximum of 512 characters (otherwise users on Misskey, Sharkey etc. will believe I haven't written any alt-text because they won't receive any due to a bug).
The other one is enormous degrees of magnitudes longer than anything most Fediverse users have ever read in the Fediverse. It also contains all explanations necessary to understand the image and its description, and if there's text anywhere within the borders of the image, readable or not, it contains verbatim transcripts of said text.
The nature of my original images requires such long descriptions. Besides, the only way to really be safe from the alt-text police of the Mastodon HOA is to overcomply with whatever minimum standards for good image descriptions anyone of them may have.
On the other hand, the self-same Mastodon HOA is likely to sanction me for the self-same posts. The reason: The posts are way too long. They exceed the limit of 500 characters that's so deeply engrained into Mastodon's culture that many Mastodonians are eager to defend it. Even if I hide them behind a summary with a content warning about the post being long. If I were to appease these Mastodonians, I'd have to underdescribe my images, and I wouldn't be able to explain them at all.
Speaking of underdescribing, I think at least some members of the alt-text police actually don't let image descriptions in the post count. What counts is only the image description in the alt-text. It must be accurate, it must be sufficiently detailed, and it must contain all the text transcripts. In fact, I wouldn't wonder if they demanded sufficient explanations in the alt-text, not knowing that explanations in alt-text are actually a big no-no.
Even if all requirements of a good alt-text by alt-text police standards are met or even exceeded by the image description in the post, chances are the alt-text police will still sanction me if the alt-text doesn't meet these criteria.
When it comes to my original images, even squeezing all that into the 1,500-character limit for alt-texts imposed by Mastodon is pretty much impossible. Squeezing it into the 512-character limit for alt-text imposed by Misskey and its forks is even more impossible.
The only winning move is to not play at all. Curiously, some people are even upset about me rarely posting any images. Although they don't follow me. Although the channel that I use for original images (@Jupiter Rowland's (streams) outlet) has next to no reach, so even if I were to post images again, practically nobody would notice. Although it doesn't even seem that there's much interest in that kind of images in the first place.
But apparently, according to some, posting images with only rudimentary alt-text whipped up in a minute, no long description and no explanations is always so much better than not posting images because it takes so much time and effort to describe them.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CWContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
CW: Long posts vs insufficiently described images: I can't win either way; CW: long (over 3,500 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, alt-text meta, image description meta, content warning meta, character limit meta
On the one hand, I have to go out of my way and write two image descriptions for each one of my original images. One is short and goes into the alt-text, and I'm going to limit all my future alt-text to a maximum of 512 characters (otherwise users on Misskey, Sharkey etc. will believe I haven't written any alt-text because they won't receive any due to a bug).
The other one is enormous degrees of magnitudes longer than anything most Fediverse users have ever read in the Fediverse. It also contains all explanations necessary to understand the image and its description, and if there's text anywhere within the borders of the image, readable or not, it contains verbatim transcripts of said text.
The nature of my original images requires such long descriptions. Besides, the only way to really be safe from the alt-text police of the Mastodon HOA is to overcomply with whatever minimum standards for good image descriptions anyone of them may have.
On the other hand, the self-same Mastodon HOA is likely to sanction me for the self-same posts. The reason: The posts are way too long. They exceed the limit of 500 characters that's so deeply engrained into Mastodon's culture that many Mastodonians are eager to defend it. Even if I hide them behind a summary with a content warning about the post being long. If I were to appease these Mastodonians, I'd have to underdescribe my images, and I wouldn't be able to explain them at all.
Speaking of underdescribing, I think at least some members of the alt-text police actually don't let image descriptions in the post count. What counts is only the image description in the alt-text. It must be accurate, it must be sufficiently detailed, and it must contain all the text transcripts. In fact, I wouldn't wonder if they demanded sufficient explanations in the alt-text, not knowing that explanations in alt-text are actually a big no-no.
Even if all requirements of a good alt-text by alt-text police standards are met or even exceeded by the image description in the post, chances are the alt-text police will still sanction me if the alt-text doesn't meet these criteria.
When it comes to my original images, even squeezing all that into the 1,500-character limit for alt-texts imposed by Mastodon is pretty much impossible. Squeezing it into the 512-character limit for alt-text imposed by Misskey and its forks is even more impossible.
The only winning move is to not play at all. Curiously, some people are even upset about me rarely posting any images. Although they don't follow me. Although the channel that I use for original images (@Jupiter Rowland's (streams) outlet) has next to no reach, so even if I were to post images again, practically nobody would notice. Although it doesn't even seem that there's much interest in that kind of images in the first place.
But apparently, according to some, posting images with only rudimentary alt-text whipped up in a minute, no long description and no explanations is always so much better than not posting images because it takes so much time and effort to describe them.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CWContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture