Now I know how at least some people prefer their image explanations, but I'm still not sure what to do; CW: long (almost 3,500 characters), Fediverse meta, image description meta, ableism mentioned
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I should have expected that much.
I've asked a bunch of blind Mastodon users whether they prefer explanations for images, especially memes, as external links or written into the post. Of course, the majority preferred the latter because it's much more convenient.
But I were to explain a meme myself in the post so that nobody would require any external sources of information, that'd lead to tens of thousands of characters of explanation. When I reminded those whom I had asked of this detail which they may not have noticed, all except one noped out. Even a sighted but neurodiverse user chimed in and spoke out against such massive piles of explanations, all in spite of often requiring explanations to understand things.
All of a sudden, the external link seemed more preferable than having enough explanations served on a silver platter to not have any questions.
Now I basically have three options:
- Explanations in the post
Advantages: all information readily available to everyone with next to no effort on their side
Disadvantages: a horrible, unimaginably gigantic lot of text to wade through because I also have to explain parts of the explanations and parts of the explanations of the explanations, not to mention the sheer information overload - Explanations as links to external Web sites
Advantages: posts with a great deal less text in them, they may even end up under 500 characters, all information still available without the reader having to look for it, people can look up what they need to know if they want to know it without having it forced upon them, much less work for me
Disadvantages: external links are inconvenient, make me look lazy in comparison to explaining everything myself - No explanations at all
Advantages: even less text, even less work for me
Disadvantages: makes me look not only lazy, but completely careless, and people have to search for needed information themselves and may not even find them
I would love to take the second option. I have so many meme ideas and even ready-to-post image macros that I'd like to put out on my channels. But my "library" of copy-paste explanations of templates and genres and concepts and background information is far from complete, and I'd always have to write thousands of characters individually for each detailed explanation. The first option requires so much time and effort and energy, albeit decreasing over time with my growing copy-paste library, that there'll be
weeks between two meme posts.
Most people, however, would prefer or even
demand the first option and already regard the second option as lazy and ableist. Today's Fediverse feels like you're easily branded ableist in it, once you've got some exposure on Mastodon. Pretty much the only ones who'd want me to take the second option are those who know what massive piles of text the first option is likely to cause. And only those few know whom I've personally told or even shown.
And if you really think about it, if there's a great lot to explain for people to understand an image, none of the three options is really accessible and inclusive. There simply is no way to explain that much in a way that's sufficiently accessible for everyone out there.
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