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2025-03-21 19:57:49

vulgalour

vulgalour@birdbutt.com

Alt Text question: How important is it for me to list my prices etc. when posting an picture advert for commissions?

Normally I just use a generic "advert for commissions with prices and examples" so you know what the picture is, but not the actual prices shown.

Mine is a visual medium, it isn't tactile, so I'm not sure I even have a visually impaired audience and as much as I put the effort in for alt text for many things, this one feels like it's not worthwhile.

#AltText #MastoArt

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2025-03-22 08:34:33

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@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

2025-03-22 10:59:39

vulgalour

vulgalour@birdbutt.com

@jupiter_rowland I'll have to set up some text templates I can copy-paste in to do it to that extent, otherwise it's not going to be time efficient. The challenge of trying to be accessible while also not having a team or even an assistant to help with it.

Is it acceptable for me to put the alt text in a reply to the original post? Otherwise I likely wouldn't have space for all the information.

2025-03-22 11:21:29

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@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

2025-03-22 13:58:07

It's pretty, but is it art?

mottenfest@meow.social

Screenshot of an app. Samsung Gallery Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. For all ages #Made by Samsung Ratings and reviews 4.5

Same screenshot, this time with an arrow pointing to the button for extracting text.

@vulgalour @jupiter_rowland I default to this app, since it has this neat feature that extracts text for you!

2025-03-22 15:38:34

vulgalour

vulgalour@birdbutt.com

@jupiter_rowland This sounds like a much larger investment of my time and energies than I'm able to put in. It also sounds like advice aimed at mobile users, and I'm exclusively desktop for Mastodon. I find mobile devices and touch screens quite difficult to use, so I don't where possible.

I'll figure out a compromise on this taking into consideration the advice you've given me here, something that fits the needs of the audience, and my abilities as an individual.

2025-03-22 15:54:39

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@vulgalour

It also sounds like advice aimed at mobile users, and I'm exclusively desktop for Mastodon. I find mobile devices and touch screens quite difficult to use, so I don't where possible.

This alone makes you part of the target audience of Friendica and its successors: Friendica has a few Android apps, but nothing for iOS, and its compatibility with the Mastodon client API is limited. Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte have no apps whatsoever, they have no support for Mastodon apps whatsoever, and they will never have the latter. All four are geared towards desktop browsers first and foremost.

I guess that more often than not, when I talk about them with strangers, the reaction is "where iPhone app".

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte