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2025-12-04 17:56:33

darth_hideout@mas.to

@RememberUsAlways

There are a few I frequently see that make me scratch my head. They type out all the text from memes or some detailed description in the toot & then leave the #AltText blank. So readers do get the info, but a visually impaired person may not know that’s the case. There’s a place for that.

#Mastodon #Fediverse

2025-12-05 20:52:52

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Darth Hideout 🏳️‍🌈 @RememberUsAlways So this means that if I have an extremely long and fully detailed image description in the post (my character limit is not 500, but over 16.7 million), and that image description contains verbatim transcripts of all text that's anywhere within the borders of the image (been there done that)...

...I still have to provide another image description in the alt-text that's still sufficiently detailed and accurate, and that contains all the same verbatim transcripts of all the same texts?

Now, I'm not talking about Twitter or Bluesky or Mastodon screenshots. I'm talking about renderings from within 3-D virtual worlds. They may have a whole lot of text in them even if it isn't always large enough to be readable.

For example, take this image from the same Fediverse channel that I'm replying to you right now:

https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/photos/jupiter_rowland/image/b1e7bf9c-07d8-45b6-90bb-f43e27199295

I've posted it in this Fediverse post (as in the post did end up in a lot of Mastodon timelines):

https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/item/f8ac991d-b64b-4290-be69-28feb51ba2a7

I have described the image twice. In the post itself, there is a long description of 60,000+ characters, including all necessary explanations to understand the image and the description, and including transcripts of all texts:

"Patefacio radix" (+ explanation that it is Latin for "open source")
MMXI (+ explanation that it is the Roman number 2011 and, in the long description, what it stands for)
"Universal"
"Campus"
various room numbers
the numbers 1 to 10 on circular markers on a map
"This is currrent (sic) location"
"1: Main Landing Zone"
"2: Main Building Lobby"
"3: Main Conference Hall"
"4: Recreation and Conference Center"
"5: Observation Deck and Sea Lab"
"6: Science Lab and Conference Room"
"7: Campfire and Beach Zone"
"8: The Light House"
"9: Engineering Conference Center"
"10: Helicopter Landing Pad"
"click to select location then right click and teleport!"
"Teleport"
"AVATARS"
the capital letter "C"
"To download a free copy of the Universal Campus Var Region."
"Click here for notecard"

In the alt-text which is exactly 1,500 characters long, there is a short image description of a bit over 1,400 characters which does not contain any text transcripts. That's because it doesn't have enough room for all these transcripts plus visual descriptions of where each one of all these bits of text is.

If it's a hard requirement to add all these text transcripts into the alt-text and, of course, describe where they are (because they'd be useless otherwise), then I can no longer post any images with text anywhere in them. And I probably have to delete all my image posts that do contain text and hope that they will be deleted from everywhere on Mastodon and Pixelfed as well.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Transcript #Transcripts