Generally I'm seeing a lot of people these days post media without #AltText and being blasé when confronted about it. Some correct their habits, but not all. Some add very cursory alt-text, clearly they couldn't be bothered doing more. And it really disappoints me, because good alt-text is not only necessary for disabled people anywhere, but also a boon for those with insufficient internet connectivity, AND a great supplement for any media when used thoughtfully.
Stolen and reposted because "no alt text" which is especially relevant when you're trying to get a message across to everyone with your posts. Inclusion isn't a buzzword my dude.
@VeroniqueB99 You can ask for help with #AltText - there's several ways to get help for it, if disabled & unable to do it yourself. Please check out @FediTips for their info on it.
@VeroniqueB99 I don't understand why it wasn't for you. I'm a disabled person, disability advocate & accessibility consultant, with several blind & visually impaired family & friends. There's help options for #PeopleWithDisabilities to get more #AltText assistance. Putting it in comments doesn't help visually impaired or blind folks, it's ableist.
I ask people to try to imagine themselves blind, trying to navigate social media multimedia when there's no AltText provided & being ostracized by it
The #alttext link in the web interface doesn't work for me so I've been trying other free services. Although it takes way too much time for what I'm posting (album covers and discs), I think I'll just keep doing it myself.
Any implicit standard on how to contribute #AltText on someone else's media, that apps like #Moshidon load up from replies? Any of the apps that are about to implement similar thing?
@jupiter_rowland The intent of my request doesn't include technologically modifying someone else's post, no-no. What I meant is a form of suggested content: alt-text contributed in replies. When I think about it twice, such system is prone to bad acting, but so far immediate #AltText suggestion and fetching in replies seem to have benefits that outweigh disadvantages.
At least, it's better than to disregard entire posts just because author had no time for descriptions or missed a cue. Plus TIL there is an entire bunch of people that want to help caption things and it's already so integral to fedi that it feels less-than-modern to have no standard of displaying such suggested content in place where you really want it (alt-text right next to image, captionista's name included).
Thank you for the hashtags, though! They look like a step forward that apps can boot from. Again, it's not exactly a feature I'd expect to see in every client, just more specialized/advanced ones.
The internet is already off here, and apparently the cell coverage isn't great, so I have been reading a lot of alt text while I wait for photos to load, and sometimes just boop yer delightful alt text descriptions without ever getting to see the images.
In case you thought alt text didn't matter. #altText#altTextMatters
I’ve recently been using #IceCubes for Mastodon and recently noticed the automatic #AltText generator. So far it’s been pretty accurate including adding text from memes.
Came across this lovely orange-flowered succulent last week (2) and found it fully bloomed this week (1). My ID app suggests that it is likely a member of the ice plant family which are native to Africa.
(05/23/24, 05/15/24)
I had given up on pleading for more alt-text but I'll try again!
Please add alt-text to your photos/pictures it only takes a minute and does not have to be fancy. My policy is not to boost images without alt-text and I am not the only one.
This is one of the cultural things I like about Mastodon, the inclusiveness. Please don't ruin it.
In solidarity with the blind and vision-impaired community, I propose that twice a year, on the World Sight Day and the Global Accessibility Awareness Day, fediverse admins disable images on their servers to highlight the importance of writing good image descriptions.
Well, convincing admins of big instances to get onboard with the idea is an uphill battle, as you'd expect.
So maybe something like regular folks posting descriptions of the images they'd normally upload instead of the images themselves could be a good, arguably less impactful alternative?