-

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 17:16:23 +0100

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

I'm wondering what'd be the lesser evil.

Thousands of Mastodon users not boosting my image posts because I didn't add an image description?

Or thousands of Mastodon users plus a few entire Mastodon instances blocking me because I did add an image description. Only that it inflated the post to thousands or tens of thousands of characters.

#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #LongPosts

Fediverse

show all 14 comments

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 17:18:19 +0100

Shabbir Ahmmed

shabbir@infosec.town

@jupiter_rowland
What about for photo you use pixelfed? There people appreciate adding alt text

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 17:37:01 +0100

@Jupiter Rowland I'm back on Hubzilla. When posting an image via the 'Attach' method, Hubzilla auto-adds the filename as the alt-text. On my system (Linux) - also Windows I think - the maximum filename character limit is 255/256 bytes. I have started naming files with the wanted alt-text within this limit. It makes my description of the image short and to the point.

Example of 245 byte length - this is a lot of text! :

A cat playing with a ball of string. The cat is wearing a smurf suit and has a silly grin on it's ginger face. In the background is the cat's owner who is watching the cat with a look of mild amusement. To the left, a child is playing nearby.jpg

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 18:01:42 +0100

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Shabbir Ahmmed I don't even post photos. And almost the entire target audience of my channel is on Mastodon anyway.

Besides, I'm on Hubzilla. I'm not on Mastodon myself in case you've thought that. There's next to nothing that Hubzilla can't do. I don't need Pixelfed to post pictures.

Lastly, I can't post image descriptions with altogether over 40,000 characters anywhere on Pixelfed. On Hubzilla, I can, and I have.

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 18:04:14 +0100

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@cybrkyd

Example of 245 byte length - this is a lot of text! :

No.

40,000 characters to describe and explain one image, that's a lot of text.

And in fact, that's already outdated. If I were to write that today, especially the 1,300+-character preamble would be even longer.

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 18:13:43 +0100

Shabbir Ahmmed

shabbir@infosec.town

@jupiter_rowland
I see, understood now. It’s pretty hard to decide as either choice , half of users will be unhappy

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 18:18:43 +0100

@Jupiter Rowland Why would you want to add such a lot of text in alt? Just add that into a 40,000 char post which is describing the image. Leave the alt-text as the filename as added by Hubzilla. I can't imagine a reason for duplicating your effort and having it in both. AP apps like Mastodon only allow 1,500 characters for alt-text.

I follow so many Mastodon users who mostly post images with no alt text but have some sort of description in the post itself. Not all of them though... some just don't do alt-text and don't seem to care!

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 19:14:17 +0100

Shelenn Ayres

shelenn@nerdica.net

@cybrkyd @Jupiter Rowland No ides if there is "screen reader" limit. Of course the use of alt text is for accessibility. In Friendica, it is implemented as caption.

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:01:00 +0100

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@cybrkyd

Why would you want to add such a lot of text in alt?

I don't. In fact, if it explains anything, I don't put it in alt-text anyway.

Just add that into a 40,000 char post which is describing the image.

Or, better yet, what I actually do, the same post that also contains the image. It's pointless to have image and description apart from one another.

Leave the alt-text as the filename as added by Hubzilla.

I don't do that either, also because I prefer the good old Friendica-style upload-to-file-space-and-embed method. And then I add a fairly short (800-900 characters) alt-text that briefly describes what the image is about, mentions that the actual image description is in the post, that Mastodon users can find the image description above the image by opening the content warning that conceals the post, and that Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) users can find the image description below the image(s).

AP apps like Mastodon only allow 1,500 characters for alt-text.

I know, I've found that out by experiment, and I've actually demonstrated that last year to show why adding extensive descriptions to alt-text is a stupid idea.

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 09:03:12 +0100

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Shelenn Ayres Screen readers used to have a 200-character limit. Halfway recent ones no longer do.

The remaining issue is that screen readers can't navigate alt-text. In the post text, a screen reader can jump back to any point in the text to re-read a portion of it. It can't do that in alt-text. It can only jump back to the beginning of the alt-text. So if you want a portion in the middle of an alt-text re-read, you have to have the whole alt-text re-read.

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 12:54:49 +0100

Scott M. Stolz

scott@biztechtonics.net

Also, alt-text is not meant for long descriptions. It is supposed to be a short description only. If you are writing a longer description, it is supposed to be visible to everyone.

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 14:40:39 +0100

Shelenn Ayres

shelenn@nerdica.net

@Jupiter Rowland Side note, some Mastodon server admins extend the character limit well beyond standard install limit. This is a good feature that could benefit from AI to automatically provide image description wherever or however it is needed.

Sun, 04 Feb 2024 19:24:06 +0100

Baethyn

baethyn@dragonscave.space

@jupiter_rowland Just a correction to the post I'm replying to. There are things called speech history. It is an addon for NVDA and from what I hear standard in Jaws. Those are the two largest and most used screen readers out there. This means that super long alt text isn't the seeming barrier that most think even though it is still technically corect that alt text isn't as navigable as normal text.
As far as what you should put into alt text. Here are the 3 resources I always point people to when that question gets asked. I don't really think that the alt text should be an essay about the picture, but it should contain enough information to get the picture's content across.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/everything-you-need-to-know-to-write-effective-alt-text-df98f884-ca3d-456c-807b-1a1fa82f5dc2

https://www.accessibility.com/blog/what-are-best-practices-for-creating-alt-text

https://later.com/blog/alt-text/

Sun, 04 Feb 2024 19:52:12 +0100

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Baethyn Quite a coincidence that you reply to this thread while I'm working on a new image description. 23,000 characters so far, and I'm not nearly done yet.

This figure alone should show that I don't use "image description" and "alt-text" mutually synonymously, and neither should you. For I don't put my full, detailed and explanatory image descriptions into the alt-text. I mean, I could where I am. But if I put 41,300 characters of image description into alt-text, Mastodon would cut off and throw away 39,800 characters, including everything that actually describes the image plus a whole lot of explanations.

What I'd do instead is:

Write a short image "description" which actually doesn't really describe the image's visuals at all, but I have to keep it brief. Put it into the alt-text.

Add to the alt-text where to find the actual, full, detailed image description with all explanations and whatnot. Namely, if you're on Mastodon, right above in the post that's hidden behind the "CW: long post (50,000+ characters)" content warning. And if you're on Friendica, Hubzilla or (streams), right below within the same post that the image is embedded in.

Alt-text length altogether = well under 900 characters.

And then put said image description into the post text body itself where I don't have any character limit.

Believe me, I've seen lots of alt-text guides. And I can tell you that they're all useless if you're in the non-Mastodon Fediverse.

Most of them are written for static, commercial or scientific websites or, if you're lucky, for HTML-based blogs. For social media, they're garbage. Well, semi-garbage because a few bits of what's written there can be re-used for Hubzilla. But information about decorative images and setting their alt-text to empty is as completely useless in the Fediverse as everything that requires HTML.

Those that are for social media are for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and whatnot, all the commercial walled gardens. For the Fediverse with its own rules and its own culture, not to mention higher character limits, they're garbage.

Those that are written for the Fediverse are actually written for Mastodon with its 500-character limit in posts taken for a universal law. For Hubzilla with no character limits at all, which is where I am, they're garbage.

I've actually written a very long post on this topic.

Oh, and not every picture out there can be described in a few hundred characters, and still, everyone gets them. Not every picture is a generic illustration for a blog post or a cat picture on Mastodon.

I myself usually post pictures from obscure 3-D virtual worlds which nobody knows full of stuff that nobody knows. If I want people to get these pictures, it requires infodumps of out-right titanic dimensions. I could use more than the 1,500 characters available on Mastodon, Misskey and their respective forks for alt-text just to explain where a picture is from.

Hard to understand? Here's an article I've written about it.

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

Sun, 04 Feb 2024 20:00:04 +0100

Baethyn

baethyn@dragonscave.space

@jupiter_rowland That is completely fair. I added what I did just for thoroughness. Mostly I just wanted to correct the thought of screen reader users not being able to manually navigate alt text. With speech history it is pretty easy to do now, thank goodness. I do appreciate the level of thought you have put into this. I do wish alt text was the norm. So thank you for your inclusivity and I wish you all the necessary words you need for your descriptions.