BodhipaksaTaken from another account so that I could add alt text. Please don’t boost posts that lack alt text.
DroidPortWhy not just post the text instead of the same photo + alt-text then?
Tbh, I don't fully understand the alt-text obsession completely.
@DroidPort I wouldn't say alt text was an obsession any more than not leaving your car in a disabled parking parking space or not leaving bags of trash in front of a blind neighbor's door are obsessions. There are many visually impaired people on Mastodon. They have a harder time in life than the average person. Why add to their difficulties by filling their feeds with images that lack descriptions? It's a simple act of human kindness to add a description so that VI people aren't excluded.
draeath@bodhipaksa @DroidPort do clients not have an option to hide image/video-only posts without alt-text?
If that's not a thing it really should be.
It's not the best solution, but since you can't generally fix/control the behavior of others without a lot of effort (and often it's wasted), this would alleviate some of the annoyance of coming across such posts as an affected person.
I should've been clearer... I mean in the context of sharing screenshots of text.
Why not just post the text to solve this issue?
Passwordsarehard4@DroidPort @bodhipaksa it seems counterproductive to post an alt text that is the exact same font of the exact same text on the same background
@passwordsarehard4 @DroidPort The main point of alt text is to make images accessible to people with visual impairments. When someone uses technology to read aloud what's on the screen, and that technology encounters an image without alt text, the person doesn't know what's being posted, which is frustrating and excludes them. If the alt text is of an image that's composed almost entirely of text, then the alt text will duplicate what you see. But the alt text can be heard by a blind person.
@bodhipaksa @passwordsarehard4
Completely understand this... But once again, why wouldn't you just post the actual text instead of a screenshot of said text + alt-text?
Please don't bother replying unless you are answering that question.
Often a screenshot of text contains more text than can fit into one post, or takes up so much of the character allowance that there's no room to comment. (The alt text field can hold much more text.)
Also, I prefer how it looks. I think it's more striking and more likely to be read than a simply text post.
Lastly, it contains information that might be useful to some people. I don't know whether it's from BlueSky or Twitter, for example, but others might.
@bodhipaksa @passwordsarehard4
OK. Thanks. Personally I think a source is significantly more helpful than alt-text... And the text here in this post would've fit into a post here easily.
But I appreciate the explanation, even if I disagree with the logic. Please understand I'm not shitting on the idea of accessibility, just the logic of alt-text for text images.
@DroidPort @passwordsarehard4 For me, in this case, a source isn't important, since it's the message that's important, not who said it. People can Google the source if that's of interest to them
And I disagree that is "easily" fits into a post. Adding in quotation marks to indicate that the words weren't mine, there would have been one character spare — no room for any comment or context.
@bodhipaksa @passwordsarehard4
OK found the source. Its from an homoerotic male model/fitness influencer of Instagram I guess?
Quite bizarre seeing this political commentary sandwiched between his naked flexing photos.
The internet is an odd place.
nightoo@bodhipaksa that's a bad comparison.
You're making it sound like not adding alt text is an active attack on blind people. It is not.
One of the great things about Fedi is that we're all free to curate our feeds as we like. You can filter any hashtags or keywords you don't like, or people whose content you don't want to see, or posts without alt text.
There's no reason to put people down for posting or boosting stuff without alt text.
@nightoo No, I'm not saying that not adding alt text is an "active attack" on people with visual impairments. I'm saying that it's not taking them into account.
And I haven't put anyone down.