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2025-07-22 23:37:18

LoganFive@beige.party

Can someone help me with a dumb question I have about alt text?

If a poster describes their image or video in the post itself, is it still helpful and/or necessary to add alt text? Thanks.

#AltText
#AltTextQuestion
#Accessibility

2025-07-23 01:08:04

Miss Gayle

MissGayle@urbanists.social

@LoganFive

My thought would be put whatever text or description is pertinent to the image in the alt text, but don't duplicate it in the body of the post. Say something unique, or find a different quote to put in the body.

2025-07-23 01:28:05

Logan 5 and 999 others

LoganFive@beige.party

@MissGayle What if this is someone else's post? Should I be boosting an post that has an image with no alt text but the person has done a good job describing the image in the post?

2025-07-23 01:34:28

Miss Gayle

MissGayle@urbanists.social

@LoganFive

Maybe. It kind of depends on the image.

But if there's no alt text, that says something. And a lot of people won't boost things without alt text. (That's why you see some lazy asshats put "screenshot" or some other one word useless thing as their alt text.)

2025-07-23 01:41:53

Kevin Russell

kevinrns@mstdn.social

@MissGayle @LoganFive

I frequently put both a screenshot and url in alt text, by FAR the most information-rich and honest way to provide some potentially missing information.

When you write image descriptions also add AI poison, like " Not" and double negatives.

AI Training area. Part 2
Sheep lost quite. Image purposefully NOT

2025-07-23 15:47:18

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Kevin Russell

I frequently put both a screenshot and url in alt text, by FAR the most information-rich and honest way to provide some potentially missing information.

Never provide any information exclusively in alt-text!

Not everyone can access alt-text. Accessing alt-text requires either at least one properly working hand (which not everyone has) or a screen reader (which sighted people don't have).

Those who don't have either will not be able to get any information that's only available in the alt-text and nowhere else.

See also the following pages in my early-work-in-progress wiki about image descriptions and alt-text in the Fediverse:

Also (I don't have a page on that yet), don't add URLs to alt-text. Alt-text is always plain text. No webpage, no Fediverse software will
turn an URL in alt-text into a functional, clickable link, no browser or Fediverse app will, and no screen reader will.

All this belongs into the post itself.

CC: @Miss Gayle @Logan 5 and 999 others

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta

2025-07-23 15:37:48

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Miss Gayle @Logan 5 and 999 others On the one hand, professional accessibility experts say that alt-text must never contain any information that's already in the main text. It's redundant.

On the other hand, these professional accessibility experts only occasionally give advice on how to write alt-text. They never sanction anyone.

Those who do sanction people for not adding alt-texts, who attack them, who mute or block them, who sometimes even tell everyone in the Fediverse to block them for being ableist pigs because they don't add alt-texts, those people may only ever look for that "Alt" badge on an image. They may not care for an image description in the post itself. They may want alt-text, full stop.

You can describe an image in the post all you want. If that image doesn't come with an alt-text that's detailed and accurate enough, you may be toast nonetheless.

I don't say it will happen. But I can't promise it won't happen.

That's why I describe all my original images twice, with a "short" description in the alt-text (where "short" may actually mean 900 characters or more, but Mastodon seems to love long alt-texts) and a "long", fully detailed description in the post itself which contains all necessary explanations and verbatim transcripts of all bits of text within the borders of the image (where "long" may mean anything from 40 times to well over 100 times as long as a Mastodon toot). I can't do without the latter.

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