#webaccessibilityinitiative — Public Fediverse posts

@Jeffrey D. Stark I know that decision tree, and it doesn't really work for my original images because it's limited to what you'd usually find on professional/commercial static websites or blogs with a very small choice of kinds of images.

Let's take this image as an example here. It was the first image I've described in detail. I'm not going to link to that description because it's hopelessly outdated and probably terribly lacking at only a bit over 13,000 characters, and the image does not have a descriptive alt-text yet. It's an old shame, so-to-speak.

Does the image contain text?

Let's say, what the image shows within its borders has 22 bits of text on it, for any definition of text. This could count as yes.

However, of these 22 bits of text, only three are legible in the image as it is, at the resolution at which I've uploaded it: three times a capital M. As I've said, for any definition of text. The other 19 are so small that they're illegible, or they are so small that they can't be identified as text, or they're so tiny that they're invisible at this resolution. The big black sign in the middle with the yellow writing on it has a tree in front of it.

Is it still a yes because, while it isn't readable, there still is text?

Is it a yes for the three capital Ms?

Is it a no because the text does not show itself as text in this image at this resolution? So technically speaking, with the exception of the three capital Ms, there is no text in this image because where there's text in the original, there's just some blurry mush that does not qualify as text in the image as shown?

Or is it a no because I can't transcribe it anyway if I can't read it? Fun fact: I have transcribed all this text. 100% verbatim. And provided translations for everything that isn't English. So "you can't read it anyway" doesn't count because I can read it.

Now comes the kicker: If we pick yes because there is text in the image, the decision tree implies that it is an image of text and nothing else, and that the image-describing process is over after transcribing the text. This wouldn't even work with an image macro.

Does the image contribute meaning to the current page or context?

Does this question even work in this case?

Let's say the post in question is about the world where the image was taken shutting down soon and my avatar in this world disappearing. Because it was when I first posted this image. It's just meant to be a last farewell.

It doesn't add any extra information. This is not a post in a professional commercial or scientific or technological blog. So, does the image contribute meaning, yes or no?

If so:

• It's not "a simple graphic or a photograph". It's a digital 3-D rendering, and it's anything but simple.
• It's not "a graph or complex piece of information". Complex, yes. But it isn't a graph, and it isn't a piece of information of the kind you'd have on a scientific website.
• I don't think it "shows content that is redundant to real text nearby".

Other options aren't available.

Is the image purely decorative or not intended for users?

That's debatable. On professional websites and blogs, this question may make sense. In social media where nobody adds decorative images to posts, it doesn't. In the Fediverse which has way higher accessibility standards than 𝕏 or Facebook or Tumblr or Threads or Bluesky or LinkedIn, it makes even less sense.

Is the image’s use not listed above or it’s unclear what alt text to provide?

Probably.

The top of the article is already a dead give-away: This guide is not meant for social media. Not for the big commercial silos, and even less for the Fediverse where Mastodon re-defines what makes an image description good. Not even two dozen people in the world use social media that support HTML <img> tags in posts.

While professional Web accessibility experts will throw their hands up into the air in utter outrage over 250 characters of alt-text because it's too long, Mastodon users celebrate alt-text that's four times as long.

So this is a case where a whole bunch of edge-cases unhandled by the WAI meet in one place:

• A situation in which not the audience comes to the content, but the content comes to the audience without the audience necessarily explicitly seeking out this kind of content.
• Social media with possibilities that vastly exceed those of the big commercial silos, especially regarding character count, while at the same time mostly not supporting full HTML.
• An audience which has defined its own accessibility "rules". Including blind or visually-impaired people who do want to know what something in an image looks like, even if the WAI alt-text guidelines forbid describing it.
• Content that has never been taken into consideration by any alt-text/image description guide out there. Ever.

Trying to force this into the WAI or WCAG guidelines is akin to trying to push a square peg into a round hole that was drilled by people who think all pegs are round.

I mean, as you've just seen, I can't even clearly answer any of the questions in the decision tree.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #WebAccessibilityInitiative #WAI #WCAG #A11y #Accessibility

@Jeffrey D. Stark I know that decision tree, and it doesn't really work for my original images because it's limited to what you'd usually find on professional/commercial static websites or blogs with a very small choice of kinds of images.

Let's take this image as an example here. It was the first image I've described in detail. I'm not going to link to that description because it's hopelessly outdated and probably terribly lacking at only a bit over 13,000 characters, and the image does not have a descriptive alt-text yet. It's an old shame, so-to-speak.

Does the image contain text?

Let's say, what the image shows within its borders has 22 bits of text on it, for any definition of text. This could count as yes.

However, of these 22 bits of text, only three are legible in the image as it is, at the resolution at which I've uploaded it: three times a capital M. As I've said, for any definition of text. The other 19 are so small that they're illegible, or they are so small that they can't be identified as text, or they're so tiny that they're invisible at this resolution. The big black sign in the middle with the yellow writing on it has a tree in front of it.

Is it still a yes because, while it isn't readable, there still is text?

Is it a yes for the three capital Ms?

Is it a no because the text does not show itself as text in this image at this resolution? So technically speaking, with the exception of the three capital Ms, there is no text in this image because where there's text in the original, there's just some blurry mush that does not qualify as text in the image as shown?

Or is it a no because I can't transcribe it anyway if I can't read it? Fun fact: I have transcribed all this text. 100% verbatim. And provided translations for everything that isn't English. So "you can't read it anyway" doesn't count because I can read it.

Now comes the kicker: If we pick yes because there is text in the image, the decision tree implies that it is an image of text and nothing else, and that the image-describing process is over after transcribing the text. This wouldn't even work with an image macro.

Does the image contribute meaning to the current page or context?

Does this question even work in this case?

Let's say the post in question is about the world where the image was taken shutting down soon and my avatar in this world disappearing. Because it was when I first posted this image. It's just meant to be a last farewell.

It doesn't add any extra information. This is not a post in a professional commercial or scientific or technological blog. So, does the image contribute meaning, yes or no?

If so:

• It's not "a simple graphic or a photograph". It's a digital 3-D rendering, and it's anything but simple.
• It's not "a graph or complex piece of information". Complex, yes. But it isn't a graph, and it isn't a piece of information of the kind you'd have on a scientific website.
• I don't think it "shows content that is redundant to real text nearby".

Other options aren't available.

Is the image purely decorative or not intended for users?

That's debatable. On professional websites and blogs, this question may make sense. In social media where nobody adds decorative images to posts, it doesn't. In the Fediverse which has way higher accessibility standards than 𝕏 or Facebook or Tumblr or Threads or Bluesky or LinkedIn, it makes even less sense.

Is the image’s use not listed above or it’s unclear what alt text to provide?

Probably.

The top of the article is already a dead give-away: This guide is not meant for social media. Not for the big commercial silos, and even less for the Fediverse where Mastodon re-defines what makes an image description good. Not even two dozen people in the world use social media that support HTML <img> tags in posts.

While professional Web accessibility experts will throw their hands up into the air in utter outrage over 250 characters of alt-text because it's too long, Mastodon users celebrate alt-text that's four times as long.

So this is a case where a whole bunch of edge-cases unhandled by the WAI meet in one place:

• A situation in which not the audience comes to the content, but the content comes to the audience without the audience necessarily explicitly seeking out this kind of content.
• Social media with possibilities that vastly exceed those of the big commercial silos, especially regarding character count, while at the same time mostly not supporting full HTML.
• An audience which has defined its own accessibility "rules". Including blind or visually-impaired people who do want to know what something in an image looks like, even if the WAI alt-text guidelines forbid describing it.
• Content that has never been taken into consideration by any alt-text/image description guide out there. Ever.

Trying to force this into the WAI or WCAG guidelines is akin to trying to push a square peg into a round hole that was drilled by people who think all pegs are round.

I mean, as you've just seen, I can't even clearly answer any of the questions in the decision tree.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #WebAccessibilityInitiative #WAI #WCAG #A11y #Accessibility

@Jeffrey D. Stark I know that decision tree, and it doesn't really work for my original images because it's limited to what you'd usually find on professional/commercial static websites or blogs with a very small choice of kinds of images.

Let's take this image as an example here. It was the first image I've described in detail. I'm not going to link to that description because it's hopelessly outdated and probably terribly lacking at only a bit over 13,000 characters, and the image does not have a descriptive alt-text yet. It's an old shame, so-to-speak.

Does the image contain text?

Let's say, what the image shows within its borders has 22 bits of text on it, for any definition of text. This could count as yes.

However, of these 22 bits of text, only three are legible in the image as it is, at the resolution at which I've uploaded it: three times a capital M. As I've said, for any definition of text. The other 19 are so small that they're illegible, or they are so small that they can't be identified as text, or they're so tiny that they're invisible at this resolution. The big black sign in the middle with the yellow writing on it has a tree in front of it.

Is it still a yes because, while it isn't readable, there still is text?

Is it a yes for the three capital Ms?

Is it a no because the text does not show itself as text in this image at this resolution? So technically speaking, with the exception of the three capital Ms, there is no text in this image because where there's text in the original, there's just some blurry mush that does not qualify as text in the image as shown?

Or is it a no because I can't transcribe it anyway if I can't read it? Fun fact: I have transcribed all this text. 100% verbatim. And provided translations for everything that isn't English. So "you can't read it anyway" doesn't count because I can read it.

Now comes the kicker: If we pick yes because there is text in the image, the decision tree implies that it is an image of text and nothing else, and that the image-describing process is over after transcribing the text. This wouldn't even work with an image macro.

Does the image contribute meaning to the current page or context?

Does this question even work in this case?

Let's say the post in question is about the world where the image was taken shutting down soon and my avatar in this world disappearing. Because it was when I first posted this image. It's just meant to be a last farewell.

It doesn't add any extra information. This is not a post in a professional commercial or scientific or technological blog. So, does the image contribute meaning, yes or no?

If so:

• It's not "a simple graphic or a photograph". It's a digital 3-D rendering, and it's anything but simple.
• It's not "a graph or complex piece of information". Complex, yes. But it isn't a graph, and it isn't a piece of information of the kind you'd have on a scientific website.
• I don't think it "shows content that is redundant to real text nearby".

Other options aren't available.

Is the image purely decorative or not intended for users?

That's debatable. On professional websites and blogs, this question may make sense. In social media where nobody adds decorative images to posts, it doesn't. In the Fediverse which has way higher accessibility standards than 𝕏 or Facebook or Tumblr or Threads or Bluesky or LinkedIn, it makes even less sense.

Is the image’s use not listed above or it’s unclear what alt text to provide?

Probably.

The top of the article is already a dead give-away: This guide is not meant for social media. Not for the big commercial silos, and even less for the Fediverse where Mastodon re-defines what makes an image description good. Not even two dozen people in the world use social media that support HTML <img> tags in posts.

While professional Web accessibility experts will throw their hands up into the air in utter outrage over 250 characters of alt-text because it's too long, Mastodon users celebrate alt-text that's four times as long.

So this is a case where a whole bunch of edge-cases unhandled by the WAI meet in one place:

• A situation in which not the audience comes to the content, but the content comes to the audience without the audience necessarily explicitly seeking out this kind of content.
• Social media with possibilities that vastly exceed those of the big commercial silos, especially regarding character count, while at the same time mostly not supporting full HTML.
• An audience which has defined its own accessibility "rules". Including blind or visually-impaired people who do want to know what something in an image looks like, even if the WAI alt-text guidelines forbid describing it.
• Content that has never been taken into consideration by any alt-text/image description guide out there. Ever.

Trying to force this into the WAI or WCAG guidelines is akin to trying to push a square peg into a round hole that was drilled by people who think all pegs are round.

I mean, as you've just seen, I can't even clearly answer any of the questions in the decision tree.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #WebAccessibilityInitiative #WAI #WCAG #A11y #Accessibility

@Jeffrey D. Stark I know that decision tree, and it doesn't really work for my original images because it's limited to what you'd usually find on professional/commercial static websites or blogs with a very small choice of kinds of images.

Let's take this image as an example here. It was the first image I've described in detail. I'm not going to link to that description because it's hopelessly outdated and probably terribly lacking at only a bit over 13,000 characters, and the image does not have a descriptive alt-text yet. It's an old shame, so-to-speak.

Does the image contain text?

Let's say, what the image shows within its borders has 22 bits of text on it, for any definition of text. This could count as yes.

However, of these 22 bits of text, only three are legible in the image as it is, at the resolution at which I've uploaded it: three times a capital M. As I've said, for any definition of text. The other 19 are so small that they're illegible, or they are so small that they can't be identified as text, or they're so tiny that they're invisible at this resolution. The big black sign in the middle with the yellow writing on it has a tree in front of it.

Is it still a yes because, while it isn't readable, there still is text?

Is it a yes for the three capital Ms?

Is it a no because the text does not show itself as text in this image at this resolution? So technically speaking, with the exception of the three capital Ms, there is no text in this image because where there's text in the original, there's just some blurry mush that does not qualify as text in the image as shown?

Or is it a no because I can't transcribe it anyway if I can't read it? Fun fact: I have transcribed all this text. 100% verbatim. And provided translations for everything that isn't English. So "you can't read it anyway" doesn't count because I can read it.

Now comes the kicker: If we pick yes because there is text in the image, the decision tree implies that it is an image of text and nothing else, and that the image-describing process is over after transcribing the text. This wouldn't even work with an image macro.

Does the image contribute meaning to the current page or context?

Does this question even work in this case?

Let's say the post in question is about the world where the image was taken shutting down soon and my avatar in this world disappearing. Because it was when I first posted this image. It's just meant to be a last farewell.

It doesn't add any extra information. This is not a post in a professional commercial or scientific or technological blog. So, does the image contribute meaning, yes or no?

If so:

• It's not "a simple graphic or a photograph". It's a digital 3-D rendering, and it's anything but simple.
• It's not "a graph or complex piece of information". Complex, yes. But it isn't a graph, and it isn't a piece of information of the kind you'd have on a scientific website.
• I don't think it "shows content that is redundant to real text nearby".

Other options aren't available.

Is the image purely decorative or not intended for users?

That's debatable. On professional websites and blogs, this question may make sense. In social media where nobody adds decorative images to posts, it doesn't. In the Fediverse which has way higher accessibility standards than 𝕏 or Facebook or Tumblr or Threads or Bluesky or LinkedIn, it makes even less sense.

Is the image’s use not listed above or it’s unclear what alt text to provide?

Probably.

The top of the article is already a dead give-away: This guide is not meant for social media. Not for the big commercial silos, and even less for the Fediverse where Mastodon re-defines what makes an image description good. Not even two dozen people in the world use social media that support HTML <img> tags in posts.

While professional Web accessibility experts will throw their hands up into the air in utter outrage over 250 characters of alt-text because it's too long, Mastodon users celebrate alt-text that's four times as long.

So this is a case where a whole bunch of edge-cases unhandled by the WAI meet in one place:

• A situation in which not the audience comes to the content, but the content comes to the audience without the audience necessarily explicitly seeking out this kind of content.
• Social media with possibilities that vastly exceed those of the big commercial silos, especially regarding character count, while at the same time mostly not supporting full HTML.
• An audience which has defined its own accessibility "rules". Including blind or visually-impaired people who do want to know what something in an image looks like, even if the WAI alt-text guidelines forbid describing it.
• Content that has never been taken into consideration by any alt-text/image description guide out there. Ever.

Trying to force this into the WAI or WCAG guidelines is akin to trying to push a square peg into a round hole that was drilled by people who think all pegs are round.

I mean, as you've just seen, I can't even clearly answer any of the questions in the decision tree.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #WebAccessibilityInitiative #WAI #WCAG #A11y #Accessibility

@Jeffrey D. Stark I know that decision tree, and it doesn't really work for my original images because it's limited to what you'd usually find on professional/commercial static websites or blogs with a very small choice of kinds of images.

Let's take this image as an example here. It was the first image I've described in detail. I'm not going to link to that description because it's hopelessly outdated and probably terribly lacking at only a bit over 13,000 characters, and the image does not have a descriptive alt-text yet. It's an old shame, so-to-speak.

Does the image contain text?

Let's say, what the image shows within its borders has 22 bits of text on it, for any definition of text. This could count as yes.

However, of these 22 bits of text, only three are legible in the image as it is, at the resolution at which I've uploaded it: three times a capital M. As I've said, for any definition of text. The other 19 are so small that they're illegible, or they are so small that they can't be identified as text, or they're so tiny that they're invisible at this resolution. The big black sign in the middle with the yellow writing on it has a tree in front of it.

Is it still a yes because, while it isn't readable, there still is text?

Is it a yes for the three capital Ms?

Is it a no because the text does not show itself as text in this image at this resolution? So technically speaking, with the exception of the three capital Ms, there is no text in this image because where there's text in the original, there's just some blurry mush that does not qualify as text in the image as shown?

Or is it a no because I can't transcribe it anyway if I can't read it? Fun fact: I have transcribed all this text. 100% verbatim. And provided translations for everything that isn't English. So "you can't read it anyway" doesn't count because I can read it.

Now comes the kicker: If we pick yes because there is text in the image, the decision tree implies that it is an image of text and nothing else, and that the image-describing process is over after transcribing the text. This wouldn't even work with an image macro.

Does the image contribute meaning to the current page or context?

Does this question even work in this case?

Let's say the post in question is about the world where the image was taken shutting down soon and my avatar in this world disappearing. Because it was when I first posted this image. It's just meant to be a last farewell.

It doesn't add any extra information. This is not a post in a professional commercial or scientific or technological blog. So, does the image contribute meaning, yes or no?

If so:

• It's not "a simple graphic or a photograph". It's a digital 3-D rendering, and it's anything but simple.
• It's not "a graph or complex piece of information". Complex, yes. But it isn't a graph, and it isn't a piece of information of the kind you'd have on a scientific website.
• I don't think it "shows content that is redundant to real text nearby".

Other options aren't available.

Is the image purely decorative or not intended for users?

That's debatable. On professional websites and blogs, this question may make sense. In social media where nobody adds decorative images to posts, it doesn't. In the Fediverse which has way higher accessibility standards than 𝕏 or Facebook or Tumblr or Threads or Bluesky or LinkedIn, it makes even less sense.

Is the image’s use not listed above or it’s unclear what alt text to provide?

Probably.

The top of the article is already a dead give-away: This guide is not meant for social media. Not for the big commercial silos, and even less for the Fediverse where Mastodon re-defines what makes an image description good. Not even two dozen people in the world use social media that support HTML <img> tags in posts.

While professional Web accessibility experts will throw their hands up into the air in utter outrage over 250 characters of alt-text because it's too long, Mastodon users celebrate alt-text that's four times as long.

So this is a case where a whole bunch of edge-cases unhandled by the WAI meet in one place:

• A situation in which not the audience comes to the content, but the content comes to the audience without the audience necessarily explicitly seeking out this kind of content.
• Social media with possibilities that vastly exceed those of the big commercial silos, especially regarding character count, while at the same time mostly not supporting full HTML.
• An audience which has defined its own accessibility "rules". Including blind or visually-impaired people who do want to know what something in an image looks like, even if the WAI alt-text guidelines forbid describing it.
• Content that has never been taken into consideration by any alt-text/image description guide out there. Ever.

Trying to force this into the WAI or WCAG guidelines is akin to trying to push a square peg into a round hole that was drilled by people who think all pegs are round.

I mean, as you've just seen, I can't even clearly answer any of the questions in the decision tree.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #WebAccessibilityInitiative #WAI #WCAG #A11y #Accessibility

@Elena Brescacin The problem with accessibility standards for social media would be that one-size-fits-all is impossible. Different places have different possibilities. Even within the Fediverse, one standard for everything wouldn't work out.

It wouldn't make much sense to define one standard based on what can be done on Mastodon with its default limits of 500 characters for posts, 1,500 characters for alt-text and no text formatting whatsoever if (streams), where I post my memes, can offer you over 24 million characters and HTML. Even on (streams), it makes a difference whether one has ActivityPub on or not because it makes a difference whether one has to take into account how places like Akkoma, Misskey or especially Mastodon render things.

So if the WAI defines social media accessibility standards for the Fediverse based only on vanilla Mastodon's capabilities, they'd build them around Mastodon's minuscule character limit. These standards would either require additional information to be linked, or they would allow explanations in the alt-text, thus throwing physically disabled people who can't access alt-text in front of the bus.

At the same time, these special measures that take Mastodon's character limit into account would be completely senseless in those parts of the Fediverse where you have thousands of characters or practically no limit at all.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Memes #Inclusion #WAI #WebAccessibilityInitiative #WCAG #A11y #Accessibility