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2026-06-12 11:21:09

ambiguous_yelp@veganism.social

@joho Your alt text isn't good enough, it doesn't convey enough information for people who don't get to see the image at all

#Ableism #AltText

2026-06-12 21:41:58

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@🌱🏴‍🅰️🏳️‍⚧️🐧🔧📎 Ambiyelp Question about describing memes, just to be on the safe side.

Let's assume my character limit is not 500, but practically unlimited. Like, tens of thousands of times higher than on Mastodon.

Let's also assume I don't have a problem with writing a whole lot of text, for while most of the Fediverse is fumbling around on a phone screen, I'm blind-typing on a hardware keyboard.

How would you recommend me to explain meme templates in the post text (in addition to the visual description + text transcripts in the alt-text)?

not at all (leaves people clueless)
with one link to KnowYourMeme per used template (links are inconvenient, and the linked websites aren't necessarily sufficiently accessible)
no links, but a full, in-depth set of KnowYourMeme-level explanations down to the basics (that's 10,000+ extra characters in that one post)
same, but chopped into bits of no more than 500 characters (that's a thread of 30, 40, 50, 60 or more short posts)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta

2026-06-13 09:36:57

🌱🏴‍🅰️🏳️‍⚧️🐧🔧📎 Ambiyelp

ambiguous_yelp@veganism.social

@jupiter_rowland none of the above, the whole context of a meme template is often not important to convey the message, just a basic description like Panel 1: two people look very upset pointing at something off frame captioned "<caption>" Panel 2: cat sits in chair bewildered, captioned "<caption>"

2026-06-13 10:49:13

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@🌱🏴‍🅰️🏳️‍⚧️🐧🔧📎 Ambiyelp I'm not talking about the visual description in the alt-text.

I'm talking about a wholly separate explanation in the post text body. Like, where you'd write the actual toot. Where you probably only have 500 characters. Where you wrote the above comment. It's there where I want to put the explanation.

The story behind this is as follows:

I keep reading from Mastodon users that alt-texts (yes, actual alt-texts in this case) are useful for sighted people, too, because alt-texts can give them explanations and help them understand what they're looking at. This means that images must not only be described, but also explained if necessary.

On the one hand, I keep telling Mastodon users again and again that explanations do not belong into the alt-text because there are people who can't access and read alt-texts; Mastodon users tend to be very defensive of using alt-texts to extend their 500-character limit by another 1,500 characters per image.

Still, on the other hand, this means that especially Mastodon users want images that they don't understand to come with explanations right away. In particular, neurodivergent people often need explanations, in-depth explanations even. It appears to have gotten to a point where posting an image that needs explanations without explanations is considered just as careless and almost as ableist as posting an image without accurate and sufficiently detailed alt-text.

At the same time, whenever I post an image of any kind, memes included, they're about such obscure topics that they need an explanation. Also, not everyone is always familiar with every meme template, so I have to give an explanation for the meme templates I've used as well. So I always explain whatever might need to be explained.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Ableist #Ableism #AbleismMeta #CWAbleismMeta