-

2026-05-12 14:58:53

WeirdWriter@caneandable.social

*sigh* I honestly didn't like the article when it was printed, because it reminds me of typical blind people that don't care about other's justice, or needs, only their own, and use it to subtly say that, actually, this alt text thing is PC nonsense! https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/29496#issuecomment-4429977820 #AltText #Disability #Blind #Mastodon #Fediverse

2026-05-12 15:04:54

Sam 🐛

weirdmustard@flipping.rocks

@WeirdWriter Also, that quote is just bullshit. If it wasn't "mostly sighted people" pushing for alttext but blind people, the same as with every other accessibility question would apply - people would get mad about how disabled activists make everything about disability. So which is it, does the author want able bodied people to also fight for accessibility or does he just not care.

2026-05-12 15:13:02

Robert Kingett

WeirdWriter@caneandable.social

I couldn't tell, having read the initial against access article. I honestly didn't think it was good back then and I certainly don't think so now, but it strongly reminds me of the blind people that ignore intersectionality or pretend intersectionality doesn't exist. If you can stomach it, here's the initial article. https://audio.mcsweeneys.net/transcripts/against_access.html @weirdmustard

2026-05-12 22:05:10

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Sam 🐛 @Robert Kingett It'd be a lot easier if the fully sighted alt-text enforcers on Mastodon had the same standards for good image descriptions as the blind or visually-impaired users. And their standards usually aren't tremendously high.

But they go by their own standards. They don't even all have the same standards because they don't talk to each other. At least some of them keep raising their standards. One of their sources for what makes good image descriptions is, no, not the W3C, but Mastodon itself. Mastodon where alt-texts of well over 1,000 characters are cheered for. And you never know who of them discovers which of the many alt-text guides out there as their new reference.

Worse yet: They don't just sanction "sub-standard" new image descriptions. They may just as well sanction "sub-standard" image descriptions in posts that are several years old already.

At the end of the day, the only way for us to survive is by taking all these guides into consideration, try hard to comply with them all and overcomply with these people's standards so that our image descriptions are still good enough in four, five or more years. Where I am, images aren't generally automatically purged after a year or a few, neither are posts, so a many-years-old post with an image description that's less than optimal by today's standards, whatever these may be, may always come back to bite you.

The alternative would be to go around and update all your image descriptions whenever you find that someone has some minimum quality requirements that your image descriptions don't fulfill. And that's tedious and may send your edited posts around anew even if they themselves are outdated by topic.

As someone who posts images, you have the choice. Either you go to extremes, and you make sure that your image descriptions are good enough by anyone's standards and will be for as long as they remain available in the Fediverse. Or you end up being attacked, insulted, ostracised and blocked for not having tried hard enough.

And seriously, those who regularly lecture people who post images about the importance of alt-texts or even attack anyone who doesn't supply good enough alt-texts, I've never seen any of them do the same when someone has written a too long alt-text or a too detailed image description. Not even once.

Yes, extremely long image descriptions are rather inconvenient for those who actually need them due to disabilities. But it isn't their wrath that you have to fear. And if I knew how to fully cater to everyone's needs all the same, you can believe me I'd tell you how, not to mention try my hardest to do just that myself. It's just that that's impossible.

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