Mastodawn

🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)1d ago

I don't know who needs to hear this, but if you're yelling at a person on Fedi for not using #AltText, stop. Please.

Should you use alt-text? Yes!

Should you boost posts without alt-text? No!

Should you yell at companies and bots who don't use alt-text? Fuck yeah!

Should you try your best to make Fedi a more accessible, and safe place for everyone—including those who have trouble writing alt-text? Of course.

Should you mention @altbot or #Alt4Me *occasionally* so folx know they're both wonderful tools that can help make Fedi a more inclusive place? It would be impolite not to.

But—and let me make this clear—don't be a dick to folx who forget alt-text, or who have trouble writing it for whatever reason; it's not very punk of you.

@alice At least once have I just not posted something because describing the image in any meaningful way would've been quite a task.
Though nowadays I'll post it anyway, perhaps I should call in helpers in those cases in the future.

Getting yelled at for not being able to do something definitely pushes people away.

Jupiter Rowland 1d ago

@Jourei At least once have I just not posted something because describing the image in any meaningful way would've been quite a task.
Though nowadays I'll post it anyway, perhaps I should call in helpers in those cases in the future.
I could post lots of pictures that I've made myself, maybe several a week. Instead, I haven't posted any since mid-2024.

I, too, refuse to post any image that doesn't have descriptions (two of them for each one of my original images) which are up to my own constantly rising standards. But these standards mean that even a fairly simple image may require several hours to one or two days to describe and explain.

In fact, I have been working on the descriptions of a series of avatar portraits for about a year and a half. So far, only the common preamble for four images and the individual long description for one of them are written. Distilling an optimal alt-text from them will be difficult because recent discoveries had me lower my personal alt-text character limit from 1,500 to 512, and I haven't even managed to put one together that doesn't exceed 1,500 characters.

And that's for avatar portraits with a neutral white background. Imagine the effort necessary for a landscape or a cityscape or something like that. So much about it being done in 10 seconds.

I recall finding a beautifully built, highly detailed harbour scene. It didn't even have anything in it that'd trigger anyone, I guess, so I deemed it safe enough to post. But I found it outright impossible to properly describe within a reasonable amount of time and with a reasonable effort. I ended up choosing a much different scene that still ended up taking me two full days to describe in the long description plus the morning of the third day to write an alt-text.

To be honest, I avoid having certain elements in my pictures now, such as vehicles and buildings unless they're very simple.

CC: @🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta

Netzgemeinde/Hubzilla

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 1d ago

@jupiter_rowland

i always alt text but i never write novels

"a skiff on choppy waters with dark clouds in the distance"

it's fine

if you're going to hold yourself to the standard of transmitting the transcendental of an image, i think you're going too hard on yourself

the issue before us is accessibility. that's a fine and noble goal. more lofty goals may be pursued by some, and that's going above and beyond and is laudatory

but it's nothing that can be called a standard of behavior

Pino Carafa 1d ago

@benroyce @jupiter_rowland Depends on the image. Sometimes it's a known meme so I just say, e.g. "the well known ALL THE THINGS meme with the caption ...". Or if it's just an image "a sunrise off the Eastern Irish coast. The sky is ...."

But if it's one of my cats I can wax lyrical.

Jupiter Rowland 1d ago

@Pino Carafa @ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES @🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄) It does depend on the image, yes.

Most of the images in the Fediverse that aren't just text are real-life photographs. Real life is something that people know, that people are familiar with. For one, it isn't that exciting, and besides, even blind folks have at least got a rough idea about what stuff looks like.

When I post memes, my visual descriptions are limited to what's important in the context, and I only write one visual description per image which goes into the alt-text. However, I do add a full explanation in the post text because it appears to me like a sizeable amout of Mastodon users expect explanations for things they don't understand to be delivered to them immediately without them having to ask.

But my original images aren't real-life photos. They aren't screencaps from anything familiar either. They're renderings from extremely obscure 3-D virtual worlds.

On the one hand, I can't expect anyone to have an idea of what anything in my images looks like. If anyone sighted doubts this, I ask them to check what an avatar in Meta Horizon looks like, what an avatar in Roblox looks like and what a modern avatar in Second Life looks like (Flickr and Primfeed are good sources for the latter).

On the other hand, people may be super curious about these worlds beyond what matters in the context of a post, even or especially if they aren't fully sighted. Or the post itself is about the image, as in about the whole image as opposed to something specific in the image.

This means that I have to describe the entire image with every detail in it. And I don't describe the image by looking at the image with its limited resolution. I describe it by looking at the real thing, in-world, where the resolution is near-infinite.

My sighted audience sees a little white square with six pixels in a row that are ever so slightly less bright. They may not even notice it. I see a sign with two lines of text on it, I describe it all the way to the typeface, and I transcribe the text verbatim. This is how I sometimes end up with over 20 individual bits of text in one image that need to be transcribed.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta

Netzgemeinde/Hubzilla

Pino Carafa 1d ago

@jupiter_rowland yeah that sounds like an interesting edge case alright. Perhaps a way around it might be to post a very rough description in a couple of lines and add that you're happy to describe it in more detail if anyone asks you to. I bet you wouldn't often get such requests and that will save you a lot of unnecessary time and effort, but you'd still be inclusive.

Jupiter Rowland 1d ago

@Pino Carafa An additional advantage of this would be that I could first ask just how detailed a description they need. Like, if they really want me to spend two full days, morning to evening, to write something that'll take their screen reader three hours to read out loud.

The problem, however, is that the virtual worlds that I frequent change a lot. Everything is built by users. A place that I've shown in an image may change mere days or hours after I've been there, so when I go back to take a closer look for a detailed description, it doesn't look like on the image anymore.

Or that place may be gone entirely. For example, I could post some images from an in-world event, from places specifically built for this event. Then, two months later, someone asks for a more detailed description. But I can't write a more detailed description because I can't go back to these places, simply because these places were closed and shut down a few days after I had posted the images.

Lastly, my impression of Mastodon is still that a significant number of users do not want to ask. Whatever information they may need, they expect it all to come with the post immediately. Having to ask for a detail description or for an explanation appears to be about as bad style as having to ask for a description in the first place.

I've literally seen Mastodon toots in which people say that if they don't understand a post or an image in a post, they want an explanation to come with the post.

I've also seen a Mastodon toot in which someone said that it isn't sufficient to just say what's in an image, but you also have to describe what it looks like. Right away. And in my case, this is actually absolutely justified.

It's a catch-22: If I don't describe my images sufficiently, I risk being sanctioned by the Mastodon HOA for not describing my images sufficiently. But if I do, I risk being sanctioned by the Mastodon HOA for exceeding 500 characters in one post.

Oh, and if I chop my image descriptions into tiny chunks of no more than 500 characters, it's disturbing for my own ilk, the users of Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte, who are used to not having any character limits and everything being in one message, no matter how long it is. Besides, how many Mastodon users are willing to read a thread of 120 or more posts and find that more convenient than one post with 60,000 characters?

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #MastodonHOA

Netzgemeinde/Hubzilla

Pino Carafa 1d ago

@jupiter_rowland Very good point. There's nothing wrong with promoting some community friendly practices like "use Alt Text on images" but as your example shows, sometimes that isn't practical and people could be understanding of that, too.

Jupiter Rowland 1d ago

@Pino Carafa Well, my problem is not the alt-text.

I used to limit my alt-texts to 1,500 characters because Mastodon and its forks truncate longer alt-texts at the 1,500-character mark. In the future, I will limit them to 512 characters because Misskey and its forks should truncate them at that mark if they're longer, but instead, they delete them.

But in addition to my alt-texts, I describe my original images once more (= twice altogether). The other description is what I call the "long description", and it goes directly into the post text (as opposed to the alt-text). I don't have a character limit to worry about (over 16.7 million), so I can do what's outright unimaginable from a Mastodon point of view.

It's this long description that's causing trouble.

That is, I wouldn't wonder if the Mastodon HOA were to sanction me for my alt-text not being detailed enough when I limit it to 512 characters. In fact, I wouldn't wonder if they were to sanction me because a 1,500-character alt-text of mine is lacking important elements (descriptions of certain details, transcripts of all text within the borders of the image etc.).

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #MastodonHOA

Netzgemeinde/Hubzilla

Pino Carafa 1d ago

@jupiter_rowland sorry I forgot to ask ... what is a HOA?

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 1d ago

@rozeboosje @jupiter_rowland

home owners association

you don't know it because it's a horrible american thing (although other countries have it)

in "the land of the free" some people like to live in neighborhoods where petty despots fine you for your hedgerows not being the proper height or your garbage can lingering on your driveway too long after pickup

give some people a little power, and they turn into monsters

so thus the concept of "fedi HOA" here and on other topics

Pino Carafa 1d ago

@benroyce @jupiter_rowland Ah yes. This dovetails somewhat with my recent Toot about Dutch "bekrompenheid". Totally normal in NL to tell your neighbour to paint their front door black because that's what all the other front doors in the street look like, and how DARE you make your house stand out?

Try* that in Ireland. Go on then. I could do with a laugh.

*not you, a hypothetical busybody who lives in Ireland.

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 1d ago

@rozeboosje @jupiter_rowland

yeah, this sort of pettiness is not limited to the USA. i've heard horror stories about switzerland too. you're doing wonders for a "move to ireland" campaign, at least for me 😆

Pino Carafa 1d ago

@benroyce @jupiter_rowland If only the weather wasn't so shite here... no..... there.... should have been "here" since the 28th but I'm still stuck in NL after my BPPV attack. Travelling back on Friday. Can't wait.

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 1d ago

@rozeboosje @jupiter_rowland

vertigo?

good movie, not so nice to experience 😬

Pino Carafa 1d ago

@benroyce @jupiter_rowland I'm already prone to motion sickness, now imagine having that with no way to possibly get off the shipboatcarouseltrainswing

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 1d ago

@rozeboosje @jupiter_rowland

i had a friend that had it, it is quite debilitating. and then an endless series of doctors to get relief. the way i understood it, it's sort of like getting kidney stones, but in your inner ear. is it manageable?

Pino Carafa 1d ago

@benroyce @jupiter_rowland That's how I understand it, too.

I don't know. I'm almost 60 and this is the first time this has ever happened to me. Gawd I hope it's the last.

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 1d ago

@rozeboosje @jupiter_rowland

they had to do certain head movements i think to find relief. they found success with it

Pino Carafa 1d ago

@benroyce @jupiter_rowland I made an appointment with my doc back in Ireland on the 10th. I suspect he may be giving me exercises like that then. The exercises are meant to dislodge the "grit" out of the canals back to where it should be but I think they depend a bit on which canal is affected?

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 1d ago

@rozeboosje @jupiter_rowland

i assume the BPPV diagnosis is solid? if so, then yeah, i think you're going to get head exercises (according to me, a rando on mastodon who is not a medical professional)

it seems like a royal pain in the ass. but: you can control it. that's the key

@benroyce @jupiter_rowland Not yet. This was the opinion of a triage doctor at the "huisartsenpraktijk" last Friday. I assume I will get a more thorough assessment and diagnosis when I see my actual GP on the 10th.

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 1d ago

@rozeboosje @jupiter_rowland

you don't need to go. you got the uneducated medical opinion of a rando on mastodon. that should be enough (/s)

Pino Carafa 1d ago

@benroyce @jupiter_rowland Thank you Dr. Ben" 🤔🤪