@David Mitchell :CApride:

Mostly, just imagine you’re telling your friend over the phone about image you’re looking at and what they would need to know.

Let's just say I'm a bit critical about that because, in my opinion, it doesn't work in the Fediverse.

Jupiter Rowland schrieb den folgenden Beitrag Fri, 04 Oct 2024 23:30:02 +0200

You can't describe images in Fediverse posts like over the phone

Allegedly, a "good" advice for image descriptions is always to describe images like you'd describe them to someone on a landline phone.

Sorry, but that's non-sense. At least for anything that goes significantly beyond a real-life cat photo.

If you describe an image through a phone, you describe it to one person. Usually a person whom you know, so you've at least got a rough idea on what they need described. Even more importantly, you can ask that person what they want to know about the image if you don't know. And you get a reply.

If you describe an image for a public Fediverse post, you describe it to millions of Fediverse users and billions of Web users. You can't know what they all want, nor can you generalise what they all want. And you can't even ask one of them what they need described before or while describing, much less all of them. In fact, you can't ask at all. And yet, you have to cater to everyone's needs the same and throw no-one under a bus.

If I see a realistic chance that someone might be interested in some detail in one of my images, I will describe it. It won't be in the shorter description in the alt-text; instead, it will be in the long description which I've always put directly into the post so far, but whose placement I'm currently reconsidering. If something is unfamiliar enough to enough people that it requires an explanation, I will explain it in the long description.

Right now, only meme posts are an exception. They don't need as much of a visual description as long as I stick to the template, and a poll has revealed that people do prefer externally linked third-party explanations over my own ones blowing the character count of the post out of proportion. This is the one time that I can safely assume that I actually know what most people want.

@accessibility group @a11y group

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Inclusion #A11y #Accessibility

CC: @Monstreline @Claire (sometimes Carla) @qurly(not curly)joe

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@Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic It isn't just because of compression, nor is it because I scale my images down from my original 2100x1400 renderings to 800x533.

As I've said: I don't describe the image with the things in it. I describe the things. Not as they appear in the image, but as they are in-world where I can walk closer to them or move the camera closer to them. It's like an image with a near-infinite resolution.

For example, if there's a light grey blob in the image, four pixels wide, three pixels high, I describe it as what it is in-world, a white sign with three lines of black writing on it. I transcribe the text on the sign 100% verbatim including all spelling mistakes, I translate it afterwards if it isn't in English, I may even explain the text if someone out there needs an explanation, and I may go as far as naming and describing the typeface.

Or if there are two by two pixels on different levels between red and white, I describe them as what they are in-world, a strawberry cocktail in a conical glass, somewhat like a Martini glass. And I slap an "alcohol" content warning on the whole post. Nowadays, I'd even flag the image sensitive just because of these four pixels.

I used to go as far as describing images within my image and even images within images within my image at higher levels of detail than anyone else would describe their own images. I used to describe things that weren't even visible in-world in the place shown in the image. Pictures of places that I would have to walk or even teleport to to be able to describe them. Textures that I would have to make visible otherwise to be able to see all details.

The last time I've described an image in an image with details not visible in the place shown in my image was in this post. I used almost 5,000 characters to describe a poster on the info board. I had to walk to the place displayed in the image on the poster to be able to describe it. The description of the image within the image got so lengthy that, when I was done, I had to remind the reader that I'm returning to describing "my" image. And I actually "cheated" by adjusting the camera in such a way that one of the three posters on the info board is entirely concealed behind a tree trunk because it would have been painfully difficult to describe.

I stopped going that deep when I wrote the image description for what will probably remain my last image post on this channel. The long description was already growing absolutely humongous, and it's my longest one to date with over 60,000 characters. I had actually thought this scene would be easy to describe.

The problem I encountered was that there were simply too many images within images within my image. There's one teleporter near the left-hand edge with a preview image that made me reconsider. In-world, no matter how close I move the camera to the preview image, it mostly shows a square area that appear to be tan all over except for something dark and unidentifiable in the middle.

Actually, however, the place shown in the preview image has hundreds of single-destination teleporters. Several dozen of them are activated and have one preview image each of their destination. I teleported there to take closer looks at everything. I was actually about to write a description of that "teleport station" when I realised that I also had to describe every single one of these preview images, at least those that face the camera in the preview image on the teleporter in the place that I was originally describing. And some of these preview images had images in them in turn.

I would have had to describe probably over a hundred images. In dozens of images. On teleporters which are shown in yet another image on a sub-pixel level. In an image description which was already going out of hand length-wise. On the second day that I was working on that image description. I would have had to teleport at least three times from the place shown in my image to be able to describe these sub-sub-subimages.

That was when I decided to sacrifice details for convenience and only describe what's visible in-world within the borders of the image, excluding both objects that are entirely obstructed by something else and surfaces that entirely face away from the point of view. I do fully transcribe any text that's partially obstructed, though, although I'm considering two transcripts of such texts, namely one transcript of what's visible and one full transcript for better understanding.

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@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.

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