Analysis of my poll on meme explanations; CW: long (almost 5,000 characters), Fediverse meta
So I started
this poll two weeks ago about how meme posts should best be explained. It was mostly about whether it's better to explain stuff in the post itself, or whether it's better to link to explanations.
The result:
- 24 votes altogether which is impressive, given the topic
- 2 votes (8%) for no explanations whatsoever, at all, neither the image itself nor the meme nor the topic, neither as links nor in the post
- 17 votes (71%) for only explaining the image, but not the meme or the topic
- 4 votes (17%) for explaining the image in the post and link to places where the meme and the topic are explained
- not a single vote for explaining everything in the post
- one vote (4%) for Other, but without specifying in a comment what it meant
This is really interesting. Not long ago, people, especially blind or visually-impaired people, kept telling me that information behind external links is inconvenient and leaning towards inaccessible, and that everything must always be explained in the post itself. Now, however, according to this, poll,
absolutely nobody wants this.
I have a suspicion, however. I have a suspicion that the reason for this is because I've also given an estimated character count for the resulting post. And all of a sudden, not having all explanations served to people on a silver platter right away sounded better than having tens of thousands of characters piled upon them.
Me: "Do you want your explanations for meme posts in the posts themselves or as external links?"
Everyone: "Links suck, they're inconvenient and impractical and not accessible enough, and they suck! Always explain everything in the post!"
Me: "Okay, that's well over 10,000 characters for one image then, all in one post!"
Everyone: "What? Nope! Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope! ... Well, okay, then
don't explain everything in the post if it keeps the post shorter!"
Hadn't I given character count estimations, the poll would have ended up with
dramatically different results.
But why did almost three quarters of all voters vote for not even having links? Is it because they don't trust me to give them useful links, and they think they can do better?
No, it's most likely because they don't want me to put links into an alt-text. They expect me to do just that, even though links in alt-text don't work. They're Mastodon users, and they cannot for the lives of them wrap their minds around the possibility of describing or explaining an image anyplace else than in alt-text. Like, for example, in the post itself then.
So they voted for not having links to keep me from doing something stupid.
I could have told them that the explanation was to go
into the post. But then I would have exceeded 500 characters, and I wouldn't even have had a third of the votes I had because so many Mastodon users would have shunned the poll altogether.
Speaking of 500 characters, this must be the reason for the two voters who wanted me to explain nothing: It was the only option that promised to stay under 500 characters. And these two are probably staunchly against "long posts" (= everything longer than 500 characters).
So here's what I've taken away from the poll.
One, people want the most convenient way of having meme posts explained to them. They do prefer explanations in the post itself, but not at the cost of not only long, but super-massive posts. If there's so much to explain that it'd amount to tens of thousands of characters, several dozen Mastodon toots worth of explanation, they prefer links over that.
I can go with that. It saves me a whole lot of work, at least if there is someplace that I can link to in order to have something explained. This will be fairly easy, if not perfectly easy, for Fediverse memes. For OpenSim memes, not so much.
Two, Mastodon users can't imagine images being described or explained outside the alt-text because nobody on Mastodon does that. It isn't like they don't want links. It isn't like they think they can find better explanations for memes or for things like Hubzilla or OpenSim than I can. It's more like they don't want links where links don't work, and they can't imagine me putting these links where links
do work.
So I
will provide links. But I'll provide them where they work. In the post. At the risk of Mastodon users not finding them, but then they won't find the explanation either because it, too, will be where Mastodon users don't expect it.
Three, yes, there are people who want to enforce a 500-character limit for the whole Fediverse. Including places which have had no character limit at all since before Mastodon was even made.
I don't care. They're a small minority. Besides, Hubzilla, where I am, has been in the Fediverse for longer than Mastodon, since times when the Fediverse had no character limit at all.
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