cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/45437770
I've been thinking a lot about the Fediverse ALT issue.
Some people are annoyed by posts without Alttext, & others get reminded¹ to add it.
The core question is: How can we improve accessibility?
Proposal: ☑️ Add a user filter to hide media posts without AltTag ☑️ Reduced engagement on hidden posts would encourage adding Alt text ☑️ People who need accessibility wouldn't have to encounter unlabeled media
If this gets traction, I'll open a Mastodon GitHub issue (maybe on others too?).
There is already a not-hidden field presented when making a post to fill in alt-text on Lemmy, but I wonder how many users know its purpose. It assumes everyone knows what it is. It would be helpful if it had a short explination next to the input field, with a link to a larger explination and why it should be used.
And for images that are just screenshots of tweets or are otherwise just text, maybe some kind of image to text process can be done automatically to fill the alt-text out. 🤷♂️
I guess even a questionmark (with a link to a popular website explaining it) next to the alt-field would suffice.
Mastodon actually already has that, but manually! :)
I created a github issue for alt Text warn before post and the developer immediatly started to work and it seems like he improved it really fast: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/pull/4021
10/10 can recommend would do it again
Edit: added rating
wow that is fast!!! Mastodon is definitely slower in this particular case! Somebody sent me a similar ticket from 2024 ;)