@jean This is a great choice! And thanks for the Harvard link - sometime my brain can't figure out what good ALT text would look like so it's nice to have a reference.
@jean I like this decision. I now try to remember to add some sort of alt text to all my photo posts. I haven’t really thought about context, before now. I now feel bad about all those years I’ve been online where it, for as long as I can remember has been alt text, and I didn’t offer one. It’s never too late, I guess.
@jean I never aim for the Discover timeline, but I do try to adhere to the etiquette you pointed out, because it is the right thing to do, not because of anything else. But I suppose some need more nudging towards the good than others.
@jean Love it. I added Alt text support to Mimi Uploader last year based on what folks shared with me at the Micro.camp gathering in Portland. And having it there has been great to keep me consistent about it.
@KimberlyHirsh @jean Agreed with Kimberly. That's one reason why I've been reluctant to add ALT text (what do I need to explain/describe and how? how much detail is needed/necessary??)
@jean Well done! I try to add alt text to every single photo I post (Thanks, Mimi!), even if I could definitely improve the text 🙂
And it’s super that alt text also gets crossposted!
@val It doesn't need to be brain breaking. 😀 Think what text you'd need if you couldn't see the picture. What's the important bit about it? Once you've got the hang of that then you can learn about making it better.
@jean Now that the community knows that non-ALT photos is less like to be featured on Discover; wouldn't it discourage from posting a photo?
@ridwan We'll see. I hope not. In the end, everyone's blog is their own and they can decide what they want to do about accessibility. But for us, we felt it was important to be intentional with the Discover timeline, which is a kind of editorial feature representing Micro.blog's values.
@val @KimberlyHirsh @Miraz I wish it was easier to reveal ALT descriptions on the web, so that we could all learn from what other people do. Mastodon makes it easy to see; maybe M.b can do this. I'll submit this as a feature request.
@jean Oh, wow, I totally approve of this tweak to the guidelines. 🥰 Alt-texts: The Ultimate Guide is another hands-on article that I like, with tips and tricks for writing great alt-texts. Thanks for doing this!
@jean Of course, you do realize that an algorithmic timeline has the appearance of being unbiased, while a human-curated timeline is biased by definition? This is how I see the Discover timeline, like a kind of editors' picks. I don't envy the choices you need to make what to include and what not, similar to the folly of grading students in school when it's not a multiple choice questions exam. Having multiple languages and imperfect translation services makes it even more complicated.
TL;DR: It will not scale.
@sod Thank you for the link on this post and, again, a huge thank you for bringing this discussion to M.b 🙂
@jean I like the idea. Sometimes I post photos with thinking about what I wanted to convey from that photo. I suppose ALT tags helps in becoming mindful of it.
