#cherrypick — Public Fediverse posts

@Alex R @✨pencilears✨(KD7POW) @Princess Nettles Succubish There's so much that next to nobody on Mastodon knows about alt-texts.

For example, how inconvenient long alt-texts are for screen reader users. Or what a screen reader is in the first place.

Or that there are people who cannot access alt-texts, and therefore writing around character limits by putting explanations and other information exclusively into the alt-text counters accessibility. (In fact, that there are also other disabilities and disorders present in the Fediverse than visual impairments.)

Or that Misskey and its various forks and forks of forks (Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS, Catodon, CherryPick etc.) have an alt-text character limit of only 512. That they're supposed to truncate longer alt-texts at this mark. And that, due to a bug that still hasn't been fixed, they silently delete such alt-texts instead, giving the impression that there hasn't been an alt-text to begin with. (Or that Misskey and its various forks and forks of forks exist in the first place.)

The attitude is rather that any and all information that someone may need about an image must immediately come with the post. In the alt-text, of course. Explanations included. Because, you know, having to ask for explanations or having to ask for a description of a detail is almost as bad as having to ask for an image description in the first place. Such appears to be Mastodon's alt-text culture.

Those affected the most are people like me. People who only ever post images about super-obscure niche topics. In my case, that's renderings from extremely obscure 3-D virtual worlds, memes about these virtual worlds and memes about the Fediverse (not limited to memes about Mastodon). They all require extensive explanations, and the former require extensive visual descriptions, at least judging by what Mastodon's culture seems to demand. I mean, how is anyone supposed to know what anything looks like in my images?

At least I don't really have any character limits for message texts to worry about, so my long descriptions and explanations can go into the message text of only one single post. Still, I think we have proof now that the alt-text police demands a sufficiently descriptive alt-text even when the image is extensively described in the message text.

I guess nobody on Mastodon has ever really had a problem with me filling Mastodon's alt-text character limit up to the very last character. They'd rather mute or block me for exceeding 500 characters in the message text.

At least all this rarely happens. Describing and explaining images while trying to adhere to all the rules and guidelines out there, Mastodon's culture included, has become so tedious and time-consuming that I haven't posted a single non-meme image in over two years now.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #Sharkey #Iceshrimp #IceshrimpJS #Catodon #CherryPick #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #ScreenReader #ScreenReaders #MastodonCulture

@Alex R @✨pencilears✨(KD7POW) @Princess Nettles Succubish There's so much that next to nobody on Mastodon knows about alt-texts.

For example, how inconvenient long alt-texts are for screen reader users. Or what a screen reader is in the first place.

Or that there are people who cannot access alt-texts, and therefore writing around character limits by putting explanations and other information exclusively into the alt-text counters accessibility. (In fact, that there are also other disabilities and disorders present in the Fediverse than visual impairments.)

Or that Misskey and its various forks and forks of forks (Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS, Catodon, CherryPick etc.) have an alt-text character limit of only 512. That they're supposed to truncate longer alt-texts at this mark. And that, due to a bug that still hasn't been fixed, they silently delete such alt-texts instead, giving the impression that there hasn't been an alt-text to begin with. (Or that Misskey and its various forks and forks of forks exist in the first place.)

The attitude is rather that any and all information that someone may need about an image must immediately come with the post. In the alt-text, of course. Explanations included. Because, you know, having to ask for explanations or having to ask for a description of a detail is almost as bad as having to ask for an image description in the first place. Such appears to be Mastodon's alt-text culture.

Those affected the most are people like me. People who only ever post images about super-obscure niche topics. In my case, that's renderings from extremely obscure 3-D virtual worlds, memes about these virtual worlds and memes about the Fediverse (not limited to memes about Mastodon). They all require extensive explanations, and the former require extensive visual descriptions, at least judging by what Mastodon's culture seems to demand. I mean, how is anyone supposed to know what anything looks like in my images?

At least I don't really have any character limits for message texts to worry about, so my long descriptions and explanations can go into the message text of only one single post. Still, I think we have proof now that the alt-text police demands a sufficiently descriptive alt-text even when the image is extensively described in the message text.

I guess nobody on Mastodon has ever really had a problem with me filling Mastodon's alt-text character limit up to the very last character. They'd rather mute or block me for exceeding 500 characters in the message text.

At least all this rarely happens. Describing and explaining images while trying to adhere to all the rules and guidelines out there, Mastodon's culture included, has become so tedious and time-consuming that I haven't posted a single non-meme image in over two years now.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #Sharkey #Iceshrimp #IceshrimpJS #Catodon #CherryPick #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #ScreenReader #ScreenReaders #MastodonCulture