Stefan Bohacek<p>I created <a href="https://AltTextHallOfFame.org" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">AltTextHallOfFame.org</span><span class="invisible"></span></a> two years ago with the simple goal of celebrating the effort and creativity that goes into making the web a friendlier and more inclusive place, one captioned image at a time.</p><p>Here's a blog post from last year where I talked more about my motivations.</p><p><a href="https://stefanbohacek.com/blog/why-i-made-alt-text-hall-of-fame/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">stefanbohacek.com/blog/why-i-m</span><span class="invisible">ade-alt-text-hall-of-fame/</span></a></p><p><a href="https://stefanbohacek.online/tags/AltText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AltText</span></a> <a href="https://stefanbohacek.online/tags/AltTextHallOfFame" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AltTextHallOfFame</span></a> <a href="https://stefanbohacek.online/tags/accessibility" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>accessibility</span></a> <a href="https://stefanbohacek.online/tags/ImageDescriptions" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ImageDescriptions</span></a> <a href="https://stefanbohacek.online/tags/anniversary" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>anniversary</span></a></p>
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#imagedescriptions
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When image descriptions make virtual photo-blogging too tedious for me (and too inconvenient for at least some of my readers); CW: long (over 6,000 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse beyond Mastodon meta, alt-text meta, image description meta
Antwortete im Thread
@Alan Levine Judging by the advice I've read so far, it's always best to describe the colour using basic colours plus attributes such as brightness, saturation and what other basic colour or colours the colour you describe is leaning towards.
For example, "light, yellowish orange", "a darker, slightly less saturated, slightly more brownish tone of orange", "various shades of slightly yellowish, medium-light-to-medium brown", "a solid, slightly pale medium blue with a minimal hint of green", "a medium-dark wood texture, slightly reddish, slightly greyish". All actually used by me in the long descriptions in (content warning: eye contact) this image post.
If the name of the colour plays a role, use it and then describe the colour in the same way as above. Blind or visually-impaired people may not know what Prussian blue or Burgundy red looks like.
@Stefan Bohacek @
Faerie @cobalt @Tanya McGee Wheatley 
What do you say, is that appropriate, complete overkill or still insufficient?
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta
For example, "light, yellowish orange", "a darker, slightly less saturated, slightly more brownish tone of orange", "various shades of slightly yellowish, medium-light-to-medium brown", "a solid, slightly pale medium blue with a minimal hint of green", "a medium-dark wood texture, slightly reddish, slightly greyish". All actually used by me in the long descriptions in (content warning: eye contact) this image post.
If the name of the colour plays a role, use it and then describe the colour in the same way as above. Blind or visually-impaired people may not know what Prussian blue or Burgundy red looks like.
@Stefan Bohacek @
Faerie @cobalt @Tanya McGee Wheatley What do you say, is that appropriate, complete overkill or still insufficient?#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta
Antwortete im Thread
@Morgan 
Well, what I meant with "do what I do anyway" is not what everyone else does.
My Fediverse meme posts have fairly standard image descriptions. What may make them long and complex are the explanations. They matter in this context because everyone else would explain meme images in the alt-text, but explanations don't belong into alt-text. And meme posts about Fediverse things do need a lot of explanation if they go beyond Mastodon, and mine tend to go way beyond Mastodon.
(Content warning: eye contact) My first attempt at a new meme-posting format on a new, specialised channel was made under the assumption that Mastodon users prefer explanations given to them on a silver platter, right in the post itself which also contains the image. I was told a while ago that external links are bad and inconvenient and probably not accessible, and it's better to explain everything myself.
I always have to explain the meme template, and especially in this case, I also had to explain the topic. So I ended up with nine explanations on four or five levels with some 25,000 characters altogether, more than half of which went into the two explanations for the topic.
I couldn't imagine that this was actually what people wanted, seeing as it was generally Mastodon users who seemed to want me to explain everything, but at the same time, it's Mastodon users who complain the most loudly about long posts. And so I ran a poll on how people actually wanted meme posts to be explained. At least of the few who voted, nobody wanted explanations in the post if they end up tens of thousands of characters long.
Ever since, I've delegated the meme template explanations to KnowYourMeme which I link to.
As for the topic, (content warning: eye contact, guns) sometimes it needs no explanation. Sometimes ](content warning: eye contact, food) it can entirely be covered by links. Sometimes (content warning: eye contact) I only need a short explanation.
But in cases like (content warning: eye contact, swearing) this or (content warning: eye contact, anger, crying, Japanese swearing) this, I have to write extensive explanations, even if I can link to a whole lot of external information sources.
For my original images, renderings from very obscure 3-D virtual worlds, I do much more. I always write two image descriptions for each image.
One goes into the alt-text, and it's as long as I can make it within the 1500-character limit imposed by Mastodon, Misskey and their forks. And that's the short description that's mostly only there to satisfy the "every image must have alt-text, no matter what" fundamentalists.
There's also a long description in the post itself which is much, much more detailed. It also contains all necessary explanations which I have to write myself because I can't really rely on external links. And if there's any text anywhere within the borders of the image, legible or not, verbatim transcripts of all these bits of text go into the long description.
My most recent example, already on my new image-posting channel, but from four months ago, is (content warning: eye contact) this. I've taken care to have as little scenery or surrounding or anything else in the pictures as possible, and still, I ended up with over 20,000 characters of image description. Here I explain why portraits are easier to describe.
A few examples with scenery, in chronological order, and much longer descriptions, and I consider them all outdated regardless: (content warning: eye contact, food) this, (content warning: eye contact) this and (content warning: eye contact) this.
The first two links also demonstrate how I used to describe pictures within a picture, even on three levels in the case of the second link. But if I had carried on doing this the same way for the image behind the third link, I would have had to describe over a hundred images in various locations on at least four levels. Besides, I would have described details that not only aren't visible in the image, but that aren't visible either in the place shown in the image. Also, this might have revealed eye contact or another trigger of sorts.
So I decided against describing things that cannot be seen in the shown place. This was the first time that I actually imposed a limitation on myself.
I could post many, many, many more scenery pictures, maybe even with actual scenery and with many more details. But it would always take me days to describe one of them. The last two image posts I've linked to required two days to write descriptions.
For example, I've been to a New Orleans-themed place a month ago. It would have made for a gorgeous picture report. But it would have taken me at least a week and a half to only describe the four images that Mastodon would let through. In fact, Mastodon would have rejected the post anyway because, with the massive image descriptions, it would have exceeded 100,000 characters by far.
If you're wondering why my descriptions of virtual world images have to be so long and so detailed, I've written an article about that.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta
Well, what I meant with "do what I do anyway" is not what everyone else does.My Fediverse meme posts have fairly standard image descriptions. What may make them long and complex are the explanations. They matter in this context because everyone else would explain meme images in the alt-text, but explanations don't belong into alt-text. And meme posts about Fediverse things do need a lot of explanation if they go beyond Mastodon, and mine tend to go way beyond Mastodon.
(Content warning: eye contact) My first attempt at a new meme-posting format on a new, specialised channel was made under the assumption that Mastodon users prefer explanations given to them on a silver platter, right in the post itself which also contains the image. I was told a while ago that external links are bad and inconvenient and probably not accessible, and it's better to explain everything myself.
I always have to explain the meme template, and especially in this case, I also had to explain the topic. So I ended up with nine explanations on four or five levels with some 25,000 characters altogether, more than half of which went into the two explanations for the topic.
I couldn't imagine that this was actually what people wanted, seeing as it was generally Mastodon users who seemed to want me to explain everything, but at the same time, it's Mastodon users who complain the most loudly about long posts. And so I ran a poll on how people actually wanted meme posts to be explained. At least of the few who voted, nobody wanted explanations in the post if they end up tens of thousands of characters long.
Ever since, I've delegated the meme template explanations to KnowYourMeme which I link to.
As for the topic, (content warning: eye contact, guns) sometimes it needs no explanation. Sometimes ](content warning: eye contact, food) it can entirely be covered by links. Sometimes (content warning: eye contact) I only need a short explanation.
But in cases like (content warning: eye contact, swearing) this or (content warning: eye contact, anger, crying, Japanese swearing) this, I have to write extensive explanations, even if I can link to a whole lot of external information sources.
For my original images, renderings from very obscure 3-D virtual worlds, I do much more. I always write two image descriptions for each image.
One goes into the alt-text, and it's as long as I can make it within the 1500-character limit imposed by Mastodon, Misskey and their forks. And that's the short description that's mostly only there to satisfy the "every image must have alt-text, no matter what" fundamentalists.
There's also a long description in the post itself which is much, much more detailed. It also contains all necessary explanations which I have to write myself because I can't really rely on external links. And if there's any text anywhere within the borders of the image, legible or not, verbatim transcripts of all these bits of text go into the long description.
My most recent example, already on my new image-posting channel, but from four months ago, is (content warning: eye contact) this. I've taken care to have as little scenery or surrounding or anything else in the pictures as possible, and still, I ended up with over 20,000 characters of image description. Here I explain why portraits are easier to describe.
A few examples with scenery, in chronological order, and much longer descriptions, and I consider them all outdated regardless: (content warning: eye contact, food) this, (content warning: eye contact) this and (content warning: eye contact) this.
The first two links also demonstrate how I used to describe pictures within a picture, even on three levels in the case of the second link. But if I had carried on doing this the same way for the image behind the third link, I would have had to describe over a hundred images in various locations on at least four levels. Besides, I would have described details that not only aren't visible in the image, but that aren't visible either in the place shown in the image. Also, this might have revealed eye contact or another trigger of sorts.
So I decided against describing things that cannot be seen in the shown place. This was the first time that I actually imposed a limitation on myself.
I could post many, many, many more scenery pictures, maybe even with actual scenery and with many more details. But it would always take me days to describe one of them. The last two image posts I've linked to required two days to write descriptions.
For example, I've been to a New Orleans-themed place a month ago. It would have made for a gorgeous picture report. But it would have taken me at least a week and a half to only describe the four images that Mastodon would let through. In fact, Mastodon would have rejected the post anyway because, with the massive image descriptions, it would have exceeded 100,000 characters by far.
If you're wondering why my descriptions of virtual world images have to be so long and so detailed, I've written an article about that.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta
Are there any fediverse servers where alt text is mandatory?
Antwortete im Thread
@Morgan I've spent two full days describing one image.
I feel bad when I can't describe something in an image the way I'd like to see myself describe it.
I keep coming across scenes that I think might make for nice pictures. But then I start trying to describe them in my head. And when I discover something that I can't properly describe, I don't even take the picture. I couldn't post it anyway without a description that's up to my standards.
I refuse to post images with realistic-looking buildings in them due to how complex they are to describe. After all, I'd have to first research architectural terminology and then explain it to my readers in the long image description.
A bit over a year ago, while working on an image description which, the next day (!), would end at over 38,000 characters, I realised that I had to describe three pictures of stellar nebulae. I didn't even really know how. I was about to abandon the whole image-posting project due to this. What I've eventually written still feels like a sub-par kludge, not to mention outdated a few times over.
I've read about people going back and alt-texting their entire backlog of image posts. I've wondered a few times if it is or should be recommended to go back and edit and improve your old image descriptions after you've learned something new in terms of describing images.
What do you think, is this genuine or not?
And seriously, I don't even know whom exactly I'm doing all this for because I almost never get any feedback in any form. I do it for whoever comes across one of my image posts. Since my new channel for original images (which I do these monstrous descriptions for) has only got nine followers, and my channel for Fediverse memes (which at least tend to come with extensive explanations) has only seven, it has to be a very rare occurrence that someone who really needs an image description finds one of my image posts.
But I guess the ultimate solution is to forget about "Nothing About Us Without Us" and do what I think is right until too many people come complaining. Which will probably amount to indefinitely.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #A11y #Accessibility
I've spent two full days describing one image.I feel bad when I can't describe something in an image the way I'd like to see myself describe it.
I keep coming across scenes that I think might make for nice pictures. But then I start trying to describe them in my head. And when I discover something that I can't properly describe, I don't even take the picture. I couldn't post it anyway without a description that's up to my standards.
I refuse to post images with realistic-looking buildings in them due to how complex they are to describe. After all, I'd have to first research architectural terminology and then explain it to my readers in the long image description.
A bit over a year ago, while working on an image description which, the next day (!), would end at over 38,000 characters, I realised that I had to describe three pictures of stellar nebulae. I didn't even really know how. I was about to abandon the whole image-posting project due to this. What I've eventually written still feels like a sub-par kludge, not to mention outdated a few times over.
I've read about people going back and alt-texting their entire backlog of image posts. I've wondered a few times if it is or should be recommended to go back and edit and improve your old image descriptions after you've learned something new in terms of describing images.
What do you think, is this genuine or not?
And seriously, I don't even know whom exactly I'm doing all this for because I almost never get any feedback in any form. I do it for whoever comes across one of my image posts. Since my new channel for original images (which I do these monstrous descriptions for) has only got nine followers, and my channel for Fediverse memes (which at least tend to come with extensive explanations) has only seven, it has to be a very rare occurrence that someone who really needs an image description finds one of my image posts.
But I guess the ultimate solution is to forget about "Nothing About Us Without Us" and do what I think is right until too many people come complaining. Which will probably amount to indefinitely.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #A11y #Accessibility
hub.netzgemeinde.euWhen old meets new: Arcadia Asylum exhibits at OpenSimFest 2023Classic creations by Arcadia Asylum a.k.a. Lora Lemon/Aley at OpenSimFest 2023; CW: long (post text: 258 characters, first image description: 38,650 characters, second image description: 26,213 characters, third image description: 9,687 characters, full net length: 76,780 characters), eye contact
Antwortete im Thread
@Darrell Hilliker 
I think that's part of the issue, even if it's unavoidable: There's no one way to please everyone. And the more niche and special your content is, the harder it becomes to please as many disabled people as possible.
There's a saying: "Nothing about us without us." Don't assume what disabled people may need. Ask them. Talk to them. Listen to them.
But I guess the attitude in the Fediverse is that everything is said, everything is defined, everything is set in stone, and it'll work in 100% of all cases. No need to talk about it. You're expected to know it. Just do it.
I mean, I could just carry on assuming, based on what I've read here and there, even if that's technically the wrong thing. I know that there are at least some people who enjoy what I do, for whom it may be helpful.
I could just go on doing that and improving that, for any definition of improving. I could go on until enough people complain to me that I'm doing it completely wrong, and that staggering level of detail is bad for magnitudes more people than it helps. But this is unlikely to happen, seeing as how little feedback I receive.
I mean, at the end of the day, I can't really know whom I describe my images for. Do blind or visually impaired users even come across my image posts, seeing as they come from two different channels than this one now? Do those come across my image posts who demand sanctions for everyone who doesn't describe their images sufficiently? Are my extensive image descriptions and explanations useful for anyone?
Still, I go on putting huge efforts into describing them for the random stranger who stumbles upon one of them on some federated timeline, regardless of whether they're visually-impaired, blessed with a terribly slow Internet connection or a fully sighted alt-text enforcer.
And I will most likely go on increasing my efforts where I can. I'm currently polishing my way of describing persons or rather avatars. After all, I can see the alt-text quality requirements in the Fediverse be constantly raised, too. I need to stay ahead of them.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #A11y #Accessibility
I think that's part of the issue, even if it's unavoidable: There's no one way to please everyone. And the more niche and special your content is, the harder it becomes to please as many disabled people as possible.There's a saying: "Nothing about us without us." Don't assume what disabled people may need. Ask them. Talk to them. Listen to them.
But I guess the attitude in the Fediverse is that everything is said, everything is defined, everything is set in stone, and it'll work in 100% of all cases. No need to talk about it. You're expected to know it. Just do it.
I mean, I could just carry on assuming, based on what I've read here and there, even if that's technically the wrong thing. I know that there are at least some people who enjoy what I do, for whom it may be helpful.
I could just go on doing that and improving that, for any definition of improving. I could go on until enough people complain to me that I'm doing it completely wrong, and that staggering level of detail is bad for magnitudes more people than it helps. But this is unlikely to happen, seeing as how little feedback I receive.
I mean, at the end of the day, I can't really know whom I describe my images for. Do blind or visually impaired users even come across my image posts, seeing as they come from two different channels than this one now? Do those come across my image posts who demand sanctions for everyone who doesn't describe their images sufficiently? Are my extensive image descriptions and explanations useful for anyone?
Still, I go on putting huge efforts into describing them for the random stranger who stumbles upon one of them on some federated timeline, regardless of whether they're visually-impaired, blessed with a terribly slow Internet connection or a fully sighted alt-text enforcer.
And I will most likely go on increasing my efforts where I can. I'm currently polishing my way of describing persons or rather avatars. After all, I can see the alt-text quality requirements in the Fediverse be constantly raised, too. I need to stay ahead of them.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #A11y #Accessibility
hub.netzgemeinde.eu"Nothing About Us Without Us", only it still is without them most of the timeWhen disabled Fediverse users demand participation in accessibility discussions, but there are no discussions in the first place, and they themselves don't even seem to be available to give accessibility feedback
Fediblock for caring too much for accessibility and trying too hard? CW: long post (over 7,300 characters), multiple quote-posts, Fediverse meta, non-Mastodon Fediverse meta, ableism accusation, Fediblock meta