Talon
Darius Kazemi@talon Good idea. I have added this to Hometown as a feature request:
Toggle to filter all media that lacks media descriptions · Issue #1218 · hometown-fork/hometown
Pitch Add a toggle to the Home timeline that filters out posts that have media but lack media descriptions (image descriptions, audio descriptions, etc). Alternately, a toggle in user preferences, ...
Samuel Proulx@darius @talon The one thing that worries me about this: it could end up decreasing alt-text. If my followers post without alt-text, and I just filter those posts out, I never ask them to include it (because I didn't realize I missed posts from them), and they feel like they don't have to include it because they know I'll never encounter the image they didn't describe. So screen reader users just get left out and nobody notices or complains.
@fastfinge @talon good point - I imagine that, like many filters, it's something that an individual would turn off and on based on their energy levels for dealing with the thing they are filtering
@fastfinge @talon both of these are good points. I'm definitely leaning toward putting it in the home timeline instead of user settings for the reasons you mentioned.
@darius @fastfinge to be honest, I didn't expect that post to get as much reach as it did, and I'm also a bit worried that people will start using it as an excuse. But I still want the ability to filter that stuff out. It's happening more and more, and I'd really just not want to see it anymore if I can't get people to describe it.
@fastfinge @darius This is a social problem. Even if you force people to include an image description, they will just put anything at all in that box to satisfy the requirement. I fully agree that we should be vocal about this, but I also just don't always have the energy to do that. Just like how we can filter posts by keywords, I think we should have the option to filter posts by alt text or not. The same argument could hold true to that. Don't want to see X? Just filter it. Does that mean we shouldn't have filters either?
@fastfinge @darius part of the idea of hosting my own social media is that I can set it up the way I want. If I were to reply to every undescribed image I encounter on Fedi I'd do nothing else. That's just not how I want to use the platform all the time.
@fastfinge @darius Not to mention that sometimes this can come with significant pushback even without the filter already. I've gotten into many fights because of this already, and this is especially true on places like Discord where sharing images is encouraged and easy. I just really don't have the energy for it, and there will be people who just won't care, no matter what you say. So not engaging with the posts in the first place would be a big relief to me.
In fact, I'd go even a step further. Let me choose how many words have to be in the description for it to be viable. Something like "bird" or "cat" in the image description doesn't help at all, and it might as well just not be there.
In fact, I'd go even a step further. Let me choose how many words have to be in the description for it to be viable. Something like "bird" or "cat" in the image description doesn't help at all, and it might as well just not be there.
@fastfinge @darius honestly? I say yes. Enable it by default. I'm cheeky like that and would feel good about it.