I’m asking because it is really difficult to find a place for discussing accessibility in Fediverse posts beyond the limits of any one Fediverse server application....
Then allow me to make it less complicated. Or even more complicated.
And I’m not sure if Lemmy is the right choice for you anyways. The OpenSim community doesn’t seem very active. And since you’re talking about 13.000 character descriptions… That will also not fly on Lemmy.
It has never been my plan to post images with such massive descriptions on Lemmy. Lemmy doesn’t require image descriptions. It doesn’t require alt-text either. It doesn’t even officially support alt-text. Lemmy doesn’t live and enforce a culture of accessibility.
Most importantly, though: The OpenSim community has no subscribers on general-purpose Mastodon instances. What’s posted there will most likely never appear in the federated timeline of e.g. mastodon.social where people could get all riled up about the lack of alt-text and image description.
Besides, the 13,000-character image description is outdated already. My image descriptions have grown since then. 25,000 characters, 40,000 characters, and yesterday, I’ve posted a 60,000-character description for an image that also got an alt-text precisely at Mastodon’s limit of 1,500 characters.
And then Mastodon is a microblogging platform. Originally intended for short messages.
**I don’t intend to post my images on Mastodon either.
Hubzilla has got nothing to do with Mastodon. It was first released in 2015, ten months before Mastodon. It was renamed and repurposed from the Red Matrix from 2012 which is a fork of Friendica from 2010.
Hubzilla is vastly different from Mastodon in just about everything. Like its predecessors, it has never had a character limit, and it has always had the full set of features of text formatting and post design as any full-blown long-form blogging platform out there. In fact, maybe even more than that.
Hubzilla is not a microblogging project. It can work as one, but it can seamlessly transition between microblogging and fully featured long-form blogging and everything in-between. Hubzilla is the Swiss army knife of the Fediverse, renamed from a fork of a Facebook alternative that was created also with blogging in mind.
So I want to post my images on Hubzilla.
What does this have to do with Mastodon then?
It has to do with Mastodon that I’ve got lots of Mastodon connections. All my OpenSim connections except for one are on Mastodon, and I think all of these are on one and the same OpenSim-themed instance. But on top of that, I’ve got hundreds of Mastodon connections all over the place, including mastodon.social and other big general-purpose instances.
And all those non-OpenSim Mastodon connections came to exist because they followed me. It was not my decision to follow them. They followed me because they expected me to explain the Fediverse beyond Mastodon to them because I had recently done so. Or they followed me because they had freshly arrived from Twitter, and they desperately needed Mastodon to feel like Twitter, including lots of uninteresting background noise in their personal timeline, so they followed everyone and everything they came across in the federated timeline.
So my image posts on Hubzilla will automatically federate to Mastodon and appear in people’s Mastodon timelines. And it isn’t my decision.
Sure, on Hubzilla, I have the power to limit precisely who can see my posts by only sending them to specific connections. But I want the Fediverse world out there to see the marvels of OpenSim, to learn that free, decentralised 3-D virtual worlds have been reality since 2007, that “the metaverse” is anything but dead and not invented by Zuckerberg. I don’t want to remain stuck in an echo chamber.
Oh, and by the way: Mastodon can receive posts up to a maximum length of 100,000 characters by default. Also, Mastodon does not truncate long posts. It only truncates alt-text that exceeds 1,500 characters. But it leaves posts up to 100,000 characters as intact as any other post and probably simply rejects longer posts.
It might be you using the wrong tool for your task, since it’s intended for a different purpose and you’d need a different tool.
My tool of choice is Hubzilla. And there’s hardly anything better in the Fediverse for what I do than Hubzilla.
But it could very well the case that the alt-text and character limits of the platforms aren’t the issue here.
They’re only indirectly. With that, I mean that Mastodon’s default limit of 500 characters is deeply engrained in Mastodon’s culture, and Mastodon’s culture is influenced by this limitation. For example, 500 characters make image descriptions in the post impossible. Thus, they’re not part of Mastodon’s culture. Thus, the very concept, the very idea is completely unimaginable to Mastodon users. Because as per Mastodon’s unwritten rules, “alt-text” and “image description” are mutually synonymous. They mean the exact same thing. Everything that describes the image goes into the alt-text, and that’s the way it is, full stop.
There are some that are meant for long texts.
Hubzilla is meant for long texts. It has always been.
And you can even use Wordpress or something like that, do your own blog and install an ActivityPub plugin if you want a connection to the Fediverse.
And Hubzilla is every bit as capable of long-form blogging as WordPress.
There’s no need to have one separate tool for each task if you already have one tool that can cover all these tasks. And Hubzilla can.
60,000+ characters of full image description, my longest one so far. Plus precisely 1,500 characters of alt-text. And I actually had to limit myself in comparison to earlier posts. No detailed descriptions of images within the image. No transcripts of text on images within the image. No mentioning in the alt-text where exactly to find the full description.
And I don’t really know the alt-text culture on Mastodon.
And I’m trying to explain it to you.
Maybe it’s easier to experience first-hand, to see it with your own very eyes. Go through what appears on mastodon.social under certain hashtags and do so regularly for a few weeks or months:
Is it really necessary to write that super detailed description in an alt-text?
In the case of the image I’ve posted yesterday, and seeing as that post went out to general-purpose Mastodon instances and into the realm of Mastodon culture, definitely yes.
Oh, and in case you haven’t understood that yet because it’s so out-of-whack: I describe my images twice. One, a short description with no explanations in alt-text. Two, a full, detailed description with all necessary explanations in the post text body itself. The latter has to be even more detailed. And here’s my explanation why.
As far as I’ve learned about alt-text in webdesign, that is originally intended to give a concise description of the image in the context regarding the rest of the text. It is meant to be short and concise, like a tweet.
Alt-text rules for webdesign are halfway useless in social media.
And alt-text rules for webdesign, as well as alt-text rules for corporate American social media silos, are even more useless on Mastodon. Mastodon’s alt-text culture has nothing to do with that.
I’d put that detailed description into the normal text.
Again, I already do that with the full description.
But Mastodon insists, insists, insists in an actually descriptive image description in alt-text, no matter what. For one, out of principle. Besides, they can’t imagine there being an image description in the post text (which I hide behind a summary/content warning that they have to click to open first) because this is technically impossible on Mastodon.
So I have to describe the same image once more, this time in the alt-text, in addition to the full description in the post.
Maybe make it a spoiler so it collapses.
I can do that on Hubzilla. But Mastodon doesn’t support spoiler tags.
Most frontends for Mastodon collapse longer posts, the official Web interface as well as probably all third-party mobile apps, only the official mobile app doesn’t.
Content warnings which are the same as summaries on StatusNet/GNU social/Friendica/Hubzilla collapse posts, too, or rather hide them. I always give one of these when I post over 500 characters, so my image posts do collapse for just about everyone.
And long descriptions go into the body text, not the alt-text.
And once again, that’s what I already do. In addition to the shorter description in the alt-text.
@tsyum@rosanita@blackmastodon Especially embarrassing because we just had an article raising awareness of accessibility issues, including lack of #alttext.
#AltText
The title "Autistic Galaxy" adds a layer of meaning to the image, emphasizing the rich and intricate inner universe often experienced by individuals on the autism spectrum. The cosmic scene within the silhouette suggests the depth and vastness of the autistic mind, filled with unique patterns of thought and perception. The intermingling of celestial bodies and mechanical elements could symbolize the structured yet expansive nature of autistic cognition, where logic and imagination coexist in harmony. The flow of ideas and thoughts might be represented by the comet-like streams, illustrating the dynamic and continuous movement of an autistic individual's internal universe. This image could be seen as a celebration of the diversity and complexity of the autistic experience, encapsulating the beauty of a perspective that encompasses both the analytical and the creative.
Text begins:
"Autism? It's a State of Being. NOT an Identity Group.
You are born autistic.
There's no initiation fee.
No secret handshake.
And you don't need anyone's approval to be autistic. It's not like they can kick you out.
Maybe… they won't let you sit at their lunch table. But you're used to that. Right?
Just. Do. You.
Seems obvious. Or is it just me? Cuz…
I feel a growing pressure to conform.
Today, it's the healthy demand avoidance side of me speaking. My built-in "authenticity filter," screening out anyone who casts shade on my individuality. With hidden motive.
See, I tend to… well, go nuclear meltdown around demands for conformity.
Whether from medical pros who diagnose me… defective. Helping pros who counsel… that I become more like them. Or even autistic advocates who define proper language… and correct attitudes… to "unite our people."
Look… I cannot handle pressure.
That ain't gonna change… this autistic lifetime...
Early Word Galley Chat #ewgc –where librarians talk about great upcoming books– has moved entirely back to Twitter/X so here are 7 galleys I want to download after yesterday's chat! #alttext for details! #bookstodon#ARC#TBR#books@bookstodon@librarians
The International Catacomb Society (@catacombsociety on Twitter, www.catacombsociety.org on the web) is looking for a skilled and experienced Wordpress Webmaster to join the ICS team as an independent contractor. This is a part-time and remote position.
#AltText: part 1 #nowhiring
WEBMASTER/INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR | INTERNATIONAL CATACOMB SOCIETY (ICS)
We are looking for a skilled and experienced Wordpress Webmaster to join the International Catacomb Society (ICS) team as an independent contractor. This is a remote position. In this role, you will be responsible for making routine updates and edits on the ICS website (www.catacombsociety.org),
#AltText Part 4: Maintain and optimize a secure web page
Reviewing the website periodically for consistent functionality
Make website edits as requested
Designing and managing the website back-end including databases and server integration
Troubleshooting and running diagnostics to ensure compatibility of features such as themes and plug-ins
Suggesting updates to design and content to allow for optimal accessibility,
@NickEast@bookstodon@books I would love to possibly boost this but the image is missing #AltText so I don’t know what is in the image. Could you edit the post and add alt text? could anyone reading :helpdescribe: or #Alt4Me, describe the image in the original post? if you need help adding alt text, use the #Alt4Me but also, here is a useful guide https://fedi.tips/mastodon-and-fediverse-accessibility-tips/
I've decided that only writing about my problems with #AltText and enormous #ImageDescriptions won't work as well as actually demonstrating what I mean, and why it's a problem.
Preamble: Some of you may see me on #Lemmy. But I'm not on Lemmy.
Others may see me in their local or federated timelines on #Mastodon. But I'm not on Mastodon either.
I'm on #Hubzilla (official website) which is part of the Fediverse and federated with Mastodon, Lemmy and just about everything else. It has almost unlimited possibilities. But while I can do a lot here, especially Mastodon is deliberately incapable of displaying most of it.
For example, I can write posts that are tens of thousands of characters long, and I can write alt-texts that are almost as long as the posts can be. But while Mastodon can still show posts from outside unshortened, no matter how long they are, it has a hard cap of only 1,500 characters for alt-text which, as far as I know, is applied to alt-texts on images in posts that come in from outside Mastodon as well.
Also, I can embed as many pictures as I want in Hubzilla posts, and I can actually embed them. I can place them wherever I want in-between the paragraphs. I don't necessarily have to put them at the end. Mastodon, on the other hand, knows pictures only as file attachments which it puts below a toot. And Mastodon toots can only have a maximum of four file attachments.
Lastly, I know that the vast majority of Mastodon users use Mastodon through a dedicated app on a mobile phone. Whenever they tap a link, it will open their Web browser. I also know that mobile Mastodon users tend to see their Web browser popping up as a nuisance, and they'd rather avoid to use their Web browser and experience the Fediverse in its entirety in their Mastodon app without anything else opening.
These are limiting factors, some of which will play a role in this demonstration.
Now, to get to the topic which I've already ranted about here and, most recently, here.
I'm stuck in a situation that's a combination of these factors:
One, the Fediverse demands I comply with its #accessibility requirements at the behest of #blind and #VisuallyImpaired users, otherwise I'll be sanctioned in some way. And I'm not the one to skimp on this. I'd rather try to satisfy everyone's needs. I'd rather have people tell me that what I've done is complete and utter overkill than that what I've done isn't sufficient.
Two, while some are satisfied with a short and concise alt-text, others ask for full descriptions of pictures with everything in them plus explanations for those who are unfamiliar with what's shown in the picture.
To give you an example, here is an actual Mastodon toot from a few weeks ago. I have re-shared this post a few times already, but I can't expect everyone who reads this post to have seen it before. I've used Hubzilla's own built-in standard re-sharing feature to automatically put it here into this post:
Alt-text doesn't just mean accessibility in terms of low -vision or no-vision end users.
Done right also means accessibility for people who might not know much about your image's subject matter either.
This is especially true for technical topic photos. By accurately describing what's in the picture, you give context to non-technical viewers, or newbies, as to exactly what they're looking at, and even describe how it works or why it matters.
#AltText is not just an alternate description to a visual medium, it's an enhancement for everyone if you do it right.
(So I can't find any prior post of mine on this, so if I've actually made this point before, well, you got to hear a version of it again.)
In case you didn't get a link to the account this post came from and/or to the post itself, here is a link to the post.
Besides, just look through posts with the #AltText tag on them, and you'll see many with very elaborate and detailed descriptions, albeit often of not-so-detailed pictures, but still. So this is actually happening, yes. Not only that, but fully-detailed image descriptions are often actually praised rather than criticised.
Three, alt-text and #ImageDescription rules demand all text in a picture be transcribed in their entirety, word by word.
Four, I often post pictures that, taking the above into consideration, require very extensive descriptions because there's just about absolutely nothing in them which my audience is familiar with. My pictures are usually taken inside a virtual 3-D world based on #OpenSimulator because that's what this Hubzilla channel is mainly about. But out of probably over 13 million Fediverse users, maybe two or three dozen are familiar with #OpenSim worlds in general, and all the others aren't. And I can often hardly expect even three or four of them to be familiar with that particular place where I've taken the picture. Let's say these places are far from being as well-known and as not requiring description or explanation as Times Square, the Eiffel Tower or the Sydney Opera House. And if people don't know something, they need it described.
Five, I don't always post pictures like on Instagram or Pixelfed. That's when you make posts with pictures, and the posts are about the pictures. I sometimes use pictures as illustrations for posts which are not about these pictures specifically. In fact, these pictures are actually optional. Unlike in the former case, full image descriptions in the visual part of the post are bad style in this case.
So much about my situation.
What I'm going to do now is demonstrate multiple ways in which a certain picture that requires a very extensive description can be described in a post. None of them will be perfect. Each one of them will have its shortcomings which I'm sure will discriminate against someone out there.
The image in question can be found through this link. I have deliberately linked to the picture rather than embedded it here in order not to have to provide an alt-text that's sufficiently satisfying for everyone in this post already. The follow-up posts will be about describing this picture. Thus, they will all contain a description of the picture, and at least one of them is very likely to provide a full image description in the post body that should be accessible to everyone on every Fediverse project.
The image was first used in a post from over a year ago (link to the post) in which I've mentioned that the Metropolis Metaversum, one of the oldest OpenSim grids, has finally shut down after 14 years of operation, a few days later than scheduled. The picture shows my Metropolis avatar waving at the camera one last time before the grid, and the avatar with it, comes to its end.
Due to how detailed the picture is, due to how many objects with text on them are in the picture, and due to how almost absolutely nobody who may come across this picture will know anything in it, a full description at a detail level similar to describing a single bird in front of a blurry background plus explanations where explanations are necessary plus a full set of transcriptions can only be enormously long.
In the original post, the picture doesn't have an alt-text.
So what I'm going to do now is create multiple remakes of this post with the same wording and the same hashtags. But this time, I'm employing different techniques from remake to remake to include an alt-text and/or a full image description.
For this purpose, I've taken an image description which I've written several days ago, which already had 10,985 characters. I had actually gone in-world and visited a static memorial copy of the location shown in the picture to describe details that are practically invisible, but still theoretically visible in the picture. I've re-worked this description a bit and and expanded it even further. I've also found pictures of the big black sign behind the tree trunk and managed to transcribe it. As what's written on the panel turned out to be in German, I also had to provide a full translation. The only remaining writings within the scope of the picture that weren't transcribed are all on the Windows "screen" of the laptop on the counter of the info desk which is actually a static texture.
When combined into one paragraph, the description has 13,215 characters now.
The variants I'm going to post:
Variant 1: short alt-text that only mentions what matters in the context of the post; no description given at all
Variant 2: full image description in the alt-text
Variant 3: short alt-text announces image description available through a link; full image description available on a separate page
Variant 4: short alt-text announces image description; full image description in the text body of the post itself and fully visibly right away
As you will see, each one of them will have serious drawbacks for Mastodon users, for mobile users, for the people for whom we should all write alt-texts and image descriptions in the first place, sometimes for everyone.
In brief: I'm still not sure how much #AltText is optimal. And I tend to run into situations in which alt-text that describes everything in a picture will grow longer than any of you could possibly imagine in their wildest dreams.
Here's my situation:
I don't have a problem with writing a lot. Unlike most of you, I'm not on a phone. I'm on a desktop computer, and if I'm not, I'm on a laptop. I've always got a full-blown hardware keyboard, and I can touch-type with ten fingers. And I like to rant.
I'm on #Hubzilla. This means virtually no limit in post length and especially virtually no limit in alt-text length. The only limiting factor would be how much alt-text the instances where my posts are viewed can display. #Mastodon has a hard cap at 1,500 characters, for example.
I'm not the one to skimp on #accessibility rules unless they're technologically impossible for me to follow. I'd rather do too much than too little. This includes full transcriptions of all texts in a picture unless privacy issues speak against it, or unless I've got no way to source the original of a text anymore, and said text in the picture is ineligible even for me. Yes, I transcribe text that's one pixel high if I can get the original.
When I post pictures, I don't always post them Instagram/Pixelfed-style, i.e. posts that are about this particular picture. Instead, I often use pictures to illustrate the post. Hubzilla gives me all necessary means to write full-blown blog posts with all bells and whistles as regular posts. Describing a picture in the visible part of a post when the post isn't about the picture is horribly bad style. Doing so when there are multiple pictures in one post, regardless of whether Mastodon puts them in the right places (which it doesn't), is even worse.
I usually post pictures taken in #VirtualWorlds. In comparison with pictures taken in real-life, they have a much higher tendency to contain things that need to be described, often to both sighted and blind or visually-impaired users, because they simply don't know them, be it objects, be it locations. It's one thing if a picture was taken on Times Square, and it's something else if a picture was taken in a place of which maybe not even five people in the whole Fediverse even know that it exists. Thus, more text is needed.
Now there are two schools of thoughts when it comes to alt-text.
One: clear and concise alt-text. Only describe what's necessary in the context in which the picture is posted. Screen readers can't handle long alt-texts well. You can't navigate alt-text with most screen readers, i.e. you can't stop it somewhere, rewind it to a certain point and listen to parts of it once more. All you can do is let the screen reader rattle down the whole alt-text in one chunk. If you need to hear it again, you have to hear all of it again.
The obvious downside of this is that most of the content of the image is lost to everyone who isn't sighted, and some is lost to those who can't identify it even by looking at it in that particular picture.
Two: full description of absolutely everything in the picture plus explanation if necessary. Denying non-sighted people the chance to experience everything that's in a picture, and be it through words, can be considered ableist. Also, tiny details that are barely visible in the picture could be described so that sighted people can identify them.
And besides, there's the idea that alt-text can help everyone understand what that is that they see (or don't see) in that picture if they're unfamiliar with them.
As I've said, extensive image descriptions in the visible part of a post may be okay when the post is about the picture, but not when the picture illustrates the post and even less when there's more than one picture illustrating the post.
Yes, this is a thing. Just read what @Stormgren wrote earlier this month.
Alt-text doesn't just mean accessibility in terms of low -vision or no-vision end users.
Done right also means accessibility for people who might not know much about your image's subject matter either.
This is especially true for technical topic photos. By accurately describing what's in the picture, you give context to non-technical viewers, or newbies, as to exactly what they're looking at, and even describe how it works or why it matters.
#AltText is not just an alternate description to a visual medium, it's an enhancement for everyone if you do it right.
(So I can't find any prior post of mine on this, so if I've actually made this point before, well, you got to hear a version of it again.)
And I'm actually waiting for Mastodon users to refuse to boost posts that contain pictures with insufficient alt-text. Many refuse to boost posts that contain pictures without alt-text already now.
The obvious downside of it is: "DESCRIBE ALL THE THINGS" + lots and lots and lots of stuff in the picture + just about everything needs to be explained because nobody is familiar with any of it = alt-text the size of a rather long blog post.
I've tried that with this picture (no embedding although I could because reasons). I've written a detailed alt-text. I've spent more than three hours in-world in a preserved, static copy of this place, researching and transcribing text where probably none of you would even know that there's text otherwise. The picture alone wasn't enough of a source for an alt-text that I would have deemed sufficient.
Only description plus some transcriptions: 7,636 characters. Description plus everything transcribed, save for the big black panel in the middle background behind the tree which I couldn't transcribe because it no longer exists in-world, plus translations of everything that isn't English plus everything unfamiliar explained: 10,985 characters. If that panel had still existed in-world, and I could have transcribed it, I might have passed the 12,000-character mark. With an image description.
As I've said, Hubzilla doesn't have a hard cap for alt-text length. In theory, it could handle and probably display alt-texts much longer than this. I don't know how it'd display an alt-text of that size in practice, whether it'd be scrollable, whether it'd have a time-out before anyone could read it fully etc. Mastodon, in the meantime, has the hard cap I've mentioned above which probably also cuts alt-texts coming in from outside. That's where most of my audience is. And screen reader users might have no other choice than to sit through their screen readers rambling down alt-text for more than five minutes in one go, especially if they could get a hold of the original alt-text instead of one cropped at the 1,500-character mark.
Now, even though I'll probably kick off two separate threads, I'd like to read your thoughts about how detailed alt-text should be.
Alt-text doesn't just mean accessibility in terms of low -vision or no-vision end users.
Done right also means accessibility for people who might not know much about your image's subject matter either.
This is especially true for technical topic photos. By accurately describing what's in the picture, you give context to non-technical viewers, or newbies, as to exactly what they're looking at, and even describe how it works or why it matters.
#AltText is not just an alternate description to a visual medium, it's an enhancement for everyone if you do it right.
(So I can't find any prior post of mine on this, so if I've actually made this point before, well, you got to hear a version of it again.)
This means she asks for a) a full description and b) a full set of explanations where necessary, especially of technical content.
Besides, there might still be legally blind people who nonetheless want to know everything about everything that's in a picture, too.
Virgil Finlay illustrating A. Merritt's classic novel "The Face in the Abyss" reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, October 1940. See the #AltText for more.
what does this mean for Flatpak?
should i be worried installing these two? what does it mean though?...
For discussing Fediverse accessibility, where would you recommend me to go? Or stay here?
I’m asking because it is really difficult to find a place for discussing accessibility in Fediverse posts beyond the limits of any one Fediverse server application....