@Joseph Meyer

When you read exceptional alt text, do you ever compliment its author? What is the epitome of alt text, either in general terms or using a specific example?

I'd really like to know that myself, also to up my own game further and always stay way ahead of image description quality requirements.

I mean, I've learned a lot about describing images in and for the Fediverse over the last two years. But I guess I can still learn something new, even if I think I already take care of everything, even if the technical possibilities I have here on Hubzilla for describing images surpass those on Mastodon by magnitudes.

Maybe, if I learn something new from those who reply, I can weave it into the image descriptions for a series of images that I've been working on since late last year (the descriptions, not the images which are ready to go).

Alt text sometimes merely explains what I am viewing; other times it draws my attention to special details in a photo that I would have otherwise missed.

I never explain in alt-text. I do always explain a whole lot because I always have to explain a whole lot. For my original images, it takes me over 1,000 characters alone to explain where an image was made.

But I only ever give explanations in the long, detailed image descriptions that go into the post text body (in addition to shorter and purely visual descriptions in the alt-texts).

Or if there's no additional long image description in the post itself which is the case for my meme posts, I still supply enough explanation in the post text body (still not in the alt-text) for just about everyone in the Fediverse to understand them without having to look anything up themselves. If I can link to external information, e.g. KnowYourMeme for the template I've used, I do so. If I can't, I write the missing explanations right into the post myself.

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

@vulgalour First of all, "image description" and "alt-text" don't mean the same thing.

Alt-text is what's added directly to the image. It's what screen readers used by blind or visually-impaired people read out loud as they can't "read out loud" an image. It's what people see instead of the image if the image doesn't show for them (text-based client, too slow Internet connection, whatever).

Alt-text should never convey more information than the image which it is a replacement for.

An image description that goes into the post itself is not alt-text.

I don't see any rule or part of the "Fediquette" or "Mastodon culture" that speaks against adding that additional information to a reply.

Whether it works or not depends on whether your customers accept it or not. I guess that 99% of your aspiring customers in the Fediverse will be on Mastodon, only see your start post and not be bothered to check the replies. So my suggestion is to leave room in the original post for tellling your customers that prices can be found in a reply to that post.

But seeing as this will happen to you a lot, it may be worth looking for someplace that offers you more than 500 characters:

• a Mastodon instance with a raised character limit
• Pleroma (5,000 characters by default, configurable by the admin)
• Akkoma (5,000 characters by default, configurable by the admin)
• Misskey (3,000 characters, hard-coded; just steer clear of misskey.io)
• the various forks of Misskey and forks of their forks like Iceshrimp or Sharkey (thousands of characters by default, configurable by the admin)

If you need a five-digit character count, the best you can do requires basically re-learning the Fediverse, mastering a significantly steeper learning curve and very likely abandoning dedicated apps. Here we're talking about Mike Macgirvin's creations from Friendica (200,000 characters) to Hubzilla (probably even higher) to (streams) and Forte (over 24,000,000 characters).

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Pleroma #Akkoma #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #Iceshrimp #Sharkey #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta

@vulgalour If the prices can be read in the image, you should add them to the alt-text. A price tag is text, and text must be transcribed.

If the prices are not in the image, they go into the post text. If you only have 500 characters, make room for them. But do not only make them available in the alt-text.

Not everyone can access alt-text. There are people with physical disabilities who cannot open an alt-text. Information that is only available in the alt-text, but neither in the post text nor in the image itself, is inaccessible and lost to them. This means that information must be in the image and the alt-text or in the post text, but never only in the alt-text.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta

@LucileDT I don't even have an app.

As I've said, I post my images on (streams) now. There are no desktop or mobile apps for (streams). It doesn't work with Mastodon apps, it never will, and that wouldn't even make sense because they're way too different, and Mastodon apps lack UI elements for critical everyday features on (streams).

In fact, I use (streams) and Hubzilla, to which the same applies, via the built-in Web interfaces in a standard Web browser on a desktop computer running Debian GNU/Linux.

When I scroll an image into such a position that I can get as much alt-text onto the screen as possible when hovering the mouse cursor over it, I may be able to get some 2,800 characters. Something between 3,000 and 3,500 if I go full-screen. But the alt-text pop-up is entirely below the mouse cursor instead of underneath it. The scroll wheel scrolls the Hubzilla or (streams) UI. There are no scroll bars on the alt-text pop-up. And I can't move the mouse cursor over the alt-text pop-up. Moving the mouse will close the pop-up instead and re-open it below where the mouse cursor is then.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta

@LucileDT Technically speaking, I've got over 24,000,000 characters for posts and the same over 24,000,000 characters for all alt-texts in a post combined. Where I post my images nowadays (if I post any at all), alt-text is not a separate data field but woven into the image embedding code.

Too long alt-text still won't work. The UI can only show so much alt-text at once, and it can always only show the beginning. You can't scroll through alt-text; trying it will close the alt-text pop-up.

Besides, alt-text is most important on Mastodon anyway. And as I've already said, Mastodon and its forks (Glitch, Hometown, Ecko etc. etc.) as well as Misskey and its forks (Calckey, Firefish, Iceshrimp, Sharkey, CherryPick, Catodon etc. etc.) all cut alt-texts from outside off at the 1,500-character mark and throw the excess characters away.

In my posts, I can go all out. But that leads to extremely long posts. I had one meme post with 25,000+ characters in eight explanations for one image before I learned that people do actually prefer externally linked explanations over posts with five-digit character counts due to the many long explanations. And that's without visual descriptions.

On my channel for original virtual world images, I've only got one post with two images. One image is a fairly simple avatar portrait with hardly any surroundings, the other one is a bit more complex. Altogether, the two long descriptions still exceed 20,000 characters, explanations and text transcripts included.

It could be worse. My last image post on this Hubzilla channel here contains only one image, but it's complex enough for a 60,000-character description.

In the last one before that, I've managed to describe one single object in the image with over 3,000 characters and then explain it with another more than 2,500 characters. And that explanation still depends on the explanations earlier in the image description.

This is what happens when the topic is too obscure.

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

@Schafstelze

(überflüssige Details auf der einen, fehlende wichtige Info auf der anderen Seite)

Im Endeffekt ist das Beschreiben von Bildern also eine Gratwanderung, um nicht Hochseilakt zu sagen, wo man exakt das Optimum finden muß. Minimal darunter oder darüber ist schon sanktionierungswürdig.

Und kopiert es dorthin wo es hingehört, nämlich in die Medienbeschreibung direkt am Medium.

Damit wäre also auch meine Vorgehensweise "illegal": relativ kurze, aber einigermaßen detaillierte Beschreibung im Alt-Text plus zusätzlich lange, hochdetaillierte Beschreibung inklusive aller notwendigen Erklärungen und inklusive Transkripten aller Texte innerhalb der Grenzen des Bildes im Post selbst (kein erwähnenswertes Zeichenlimit hier). Genau das sehe ich bei meinen eigenen Bildern aber als notwendig an.

Das Problem ist hier nur: Zumindest Erklärungen gehören niemals in den Alt-Text. Manche Menschen haben körperliche Behinderungen, die es ihnen unmöglich machen, Alt-Texte aufzurufen. Wenn Informationen nur im Alt-Text zu finden sind und weder im Post noch im Bild, dann sind diese Informationen für sie verloren.

CC: @Groschenromanautorin

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #Bildbeschreibung #Bildbeschreibungen #BildbeschreibungenMeta #CWBildbeschreibungenMeta

@LucileDT I always explain my image posts extensively because I know they always need extensive explanations, being about very obscure topics and such.

But I don't do so in the alt-text. You should never explain anything in the alt-text. Not everyone can access alt-text. Besides, I'd quickly exceed 1,500 characters which would cause Mastodon, Misskey and their forks to cut my alt-texts off.

Instead, my explanations go into the posts themselves which are almost unlimited. In the case of my original images, the explanations are part of a second, much longer and much more detailed image description in the post.

CC: @chikl @Neil Brown

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

@undead enby of the apocalypse It depends.

My original images, rare as they are, are even more niche than @Zeewater's, namely renderings from extremely obscure 3-D virtual worlds. This is something that maybe one out of 200,000 Fediverse users "has a basic understanding of". The other 199,999 need explanations.

I've long since decided how much detail is relevant, based on who may come across my images, and what they may be interested in. As I don't limit my target audience although I could, I write my image descriptions for random strangers who stumble upon a post of mine on some federated timeline. Considering the topic, they might be interested in everything in the image, regardless of context. And yes, at the same time, they may not be fully sighted.

And so I go to such detail that I need two image descriptions. A "short" and purely visual description in the alt-text (which still tends to grow to 1,500 characters, complete with the note where a longer description can be found), and a long, detailed description with all necessary explanations and all text transcripts in the post itself (I don't have any character limits to worry about).

CC: @Neil Brown

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

@Garry Knight @qurly(not curly)joe This, by the way, is something that next to nobody in the Fediverse knows, and that many will deny and fight with all they can:

Alt-text must never include exclusive information that is neither in the post text nor in the image itself. Such information must always go into the post itself. If you don't have room in the post, add it to a reply or multiple.

That's because not everybody can access alt-text. Certain physical disabilities can make accessing alt-text impossible, for example, if someone can't use their hands. Money quote from way down this comment thread:

Deborah wrote the following post Mon, 10 Jul 2023 23:30:45 +0200 @jupiter_rowland

I have a disability that prevents me from seeing alt text, because on almost all platforms, seeing the alt requires having a screenreader or working hands. If you post a picture, is there info that you want somebody who CAN see the picture but DOESN’T have working hands to know? Write that in visible text. If you put that in the alt, you are explicitly excluding people like me.

But you don’t have to overthink it. The description of the image itself is a simple concept.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Inclusion #A11y #Accessibility #QuotePost #QuoteTweet #QuoteToot #QuoteBoost

@Monstreline @qurly(not curly)joe @Claire (sometimes Carla) One thing you could do is search mastodon.social for the #AltText hashtag which many put on their posts with alt-text. Also, search mastodon.social for the #AltTextHallOfFame hashtag and follow @Alt Text Hall of Fame.

However, I'm not sure if that will lead to the desired outcome. Checking Mastodon users' alt-texts and the reactions upon these was part of what led myself to what one may argue is "overthinking" image descriptions for the Fediverse. In fact, I ended up describing all my original images twice, including with a long image description in the post itself. And I'm constantly upping my game, improving my style and declaring old image descriptions obsolete because I keep learning new things and trying new things.

Granted, you may not be inspired to go as far as I did, seeing as you've got 500 characters in posts whereas I have hundreds of thousands or even millions. But still, chances are that analysing other people's alt-texts may have you overthink image descriptions even more rather than less.

For reference, here are my latest original image posts in reverse chronological order (the older, the more obsolete):

• Happy 17th birthday, OSgrid!
• Universal Campus: The mother of all mega-regions
• Inspector Jupiter Rowland, Scotland Yard...
• The upcycling and upgrading of Clutterfly furniture continues
• When old meets new: Arcadia Asylum exhibits at OpenSimFest 2023

In each case, the post including image(s) is hidden behind a summary and content warning. In the first post, the images themselves are additionally hidden behind a spoiler tag as an extra safety measure due to their potentially sensitive content.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta

@qurly(not curly)joe @jz.tusk If you have a lot to describe, and/or if you need to explain your image, the best you can do is to give two descriptions for the same image.

A "short", purely visual description in the alt-text, also to satisfy the alt-text police and the Mastodon HOA who demand there be an alt-text for all images, no matter what.

And a long, detailed description that includes all explanations, and that goes into the post.

Yes, it will exceed 500 characters. But if you regularly have to describe that much, it's best to move someplace with a much higher character limit. Spreading a long description across multiple Mastodon toots can only be a short-term kluge.

Misskey offers you hard-coded 3,000 characters. All its forks have configurable character limits which tend to be higher. Akkoma offers you at least 5,000 characters. Friendica offers you 200,000 characters, but adding alt-text isn't as straight-forward as on Mastodon.

The limit I have here on Hubzilla is even higher; I don't know how high it is, but it doesn't really matter because AFAIK Mastodon rejects all posts from outside with over 100,000 characters.

But I don't post images here anymore because Hubzilla cannot make Mastodon blank out sensitive images. I have two channels for images on (streams) now which can make Mastodon hide images, @Jupiter Rowland's (streams) outlet and @Jupiter's Fedi-Memes on (streams). (streams) has a fixed character limit of over 24,000,000 that's defined by database field size.

That is, I rarely post images nowadays. Explaining my Fediverse memes is tedious enough already. But properly describing and explaining my original virtual world images so that everyone gets them takes up so much time and energy (one image post always takes up several hours, and I touch-type on a hardware keyboard) that there are practically always months between two image posts.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #Akkoma #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta

@sunflowerinrain @Tarnport From what I've read, a digital photograph is considered the default. So for brevity reasons, it must not be mentioned.

Any other media must be mentioned, whether it's a painting, a screenshot from a social media app, a scanned analogue photograph, a flowchart, a CAD blueprint, a 3-D rendering or whatever.

But an alt-text must never start with "Image of", "Picture of" or "Photo of". That's considered bad style and a waste of characters and screen-reading time. If the medium is not mentioned, digital photograph falls into its place as a default.

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

@settima @Cynicism is Obedience

You:

• Post an image without alt-text.
• Add the hashtag #Alt4Me and/or #AltText4Me to your post.

Someone else:

• Finds your post.
• Replies with an alt-text proposal.
• Adds the hashtag #Alt4U and/or #Alt4You and/or #AltText4U and/or #AltText4You to their reply.

Then you:

• Copy the alt-text proposal.
• Edit your post.
• Paste the copied alt-text proposal into the alt-text of the image.
• Thank whoever sent you the alt-text proposal.

#AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta

@crypticcelery There's generally too little feedback on image descriptions. There should be more praise for really good image descriptions, and there should be more constructive criticism.

#AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #A11y #Accessibility

@crypticcelery I'm not quite sure if that's such a good idea. I mean, it may make trying to replace other users' alt-texts with your own ones commonplace.

I mean, Mastodon in particular is escalating
from going against no alt-text
to going against non-descriptive alt-text
to going against bad alt-text
to going against not enough alt-text.

The days of "better than nothing" are over. Mastodon is heading straight for going against any kinds of alt-text that isn't optimal, for any individual definition of optimal. It's dragging the rest of the Fediverse with itself by and by. And if suggesting replacement alt-texts for any alt-texts that someone personally deems less than optimal becomes the norm, you'll end up with disputes and flame wars over what's the optimal alt-text in lots of image post threads.

That's because there is absolutely no consensus on what's "enough" or "optimal" alt-text, or if there's such a thing as "too much" alt-text. That's also because people who are interested in accessibility don't talk with each other, neither alt-text activists nor blind or visually-impaired people. Too many people think they have the One True Recipe for describing any possible image.

What makes matters more difficult are obscure edge-cases that don't really fit into any existing scheme. Not all images are cat photos, event posters or social media screenshots. There's even less consensus on describing these edge-cases.

On the other end: Would you be annoyed by this?

Truth be told, it's highly unlikely in my case.

If I spend hours or even days describing one single image in 900 characters in a 1,500-character-altogether alt-text and, on top of that, additionally in tens of thousands of characters of long description in the post itself (no, seriously, I do that, and I've got proof), I don't think that someone will come with two even more detailed and even more massive image descriptions and ask me to replace mine with theirs.

But if someone came and tried to pressure me into replacing my 1,500-character alt-text with their 200-character alt-text and delete my tens-of-thousands-of-characters long description entirely, then I'd be annoyed.

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

@Ángela Stella Matutina I'm talking about people who can't access alt-text due to physical disabilities.

People with a strong tremor who cannot move a mouse cursor onto an image and keep it there steadily. They exist. It was one of them who told me that explanations don't belong into alt-text.

Quadriplegic people or amputees. They operate their computers by poking the keyboard with a headpointer strapped to their forehead or with a kind of pen that they hold in their mouth. They have no way of using pointing devices whatsoever. They cannot move a mouse cursor onto an image because they don't have a mouse cursor. They use their computers entirely over the keyboard.

All these people do not necessarily have a way of making alt-text a) appear and b) stay where it is for long enough for them to read it.

If you regularly have a lot to explain in your images, don't put these explanations into the alt-text, just because you've only got 500 characters in your toots. Instead, move someplace in the Fediverse that offers more characters (e.g. Misskey: 3,000; Akkoma: 5,000; Friendica: unlimited).

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

@Alt Text Hall of Fame @David Bloom Yes.

Explanations, or any other information available neither in the image nor in the post text, must never ever go into the alt-text. That's because not everyone can access alt-text. And to those who can't access alt-text, any information exclusively available in alt-text is inaccessible and therefore lost.

#AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta

@Georgiana Brummell @Nat Oleander Well, technically speaking, the long description isn't alt-text.

What went into the actual alt-text of the image were 1,402 characters of visual description + 97 characters of notice that there's a long description in the post. The over 60,000 characters went into the post text body, right below the image itself.

I could have put the long description into the alt-text. But it would have been a nightmare for blind or visually-impaired people because screen readers can't navigate alt-text. Also, Mastodon, Glitch, Hometown, Misskey, Calckey, Firefish, Iceshrimp, CherryPick, Sharkey, Catodon and the other Mastodon and Misskey forks chop long alt-texts from outside off at the 1,500-character mark. Mastodon would simply have deleted almost 59,000 characters from my image description on their side, had I put it into the alt-text.

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