Don't use alt-text to write around your character limit!

Okay, so you're on vanilla Mastodon. You've only got 500 characters, and these must include mentions and hashtags and the CW.

But alt-text gives you a whopping 1,500 characters on top of these 500 character! Per image even!

So you have an idea: You put most of your toot into alt-text. Bam, instant higher character limit.

Seriously, that's a bad idea.

Not everyone can read what you write into alt-text

That's because some people can't access alt-text. I'm being serious here.

Accessing alt-text requires a mouse (or something similar) or a touch screen or a screen reader. Sighted people don't have screen readers, so it's mouse (or similar) or touch screen for them.

But using a mouse (or similar) or a touch screen requires at least one working hand. And not everyone has working hands, just like not everyone can see properly. Those who don't have working hands can't read the extra stuff you've written into your alt-text.

"But what if I have to write more than 500 characters?"

Sometimes you really have to write more than 500 characters, e.g. for an additional long image description or for explanations which, by the way, don't belong into alt-text either. But you only have these 500 characters. What do you do then?

Short-term workaround: a thread

If it only happens to you this once or maybe twice or so, the easiest way is to split your post into a thread of multiple posts. This is very ugly, though, and many non-Mastodon Fediverse users don't like this.

Long-term solution: moving elsewhere in the Fediverse

If it happens to you regularly, or if the above workaround is too ugly for you, the best solution is to move to another server in the Fediverse without that 500-character limit. This means that you'll either have to ask around for a Mastodon instance with an increased character limit.

Or if you don't want to ask around, it's the best to move to somewhere in the Fediverse that isn't Mastodon. Character limits in the rest of the Fediverse range from Misskey's¹ hard-coded 3,000 characters and Pleroma and Akkoma's admin-configurable 5,000 characters to over 16 million characters on Friendica and Hubzilla² and over 24 million characters on (streams) and Forte. And still, wherever you go, you can still follow the same people on Mastodon, and Mastodon users can follow you.