Notices by ELLIOTTCABLE (elliottcable@functional.cafe)

@vikingkong @nikitonsky what a useless reply.

then again, мой тоже, so, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@vikingkong @nikitonsky I mean, just to say the same shit everybody always says on either side of this exhaustingly-pointless "debate."

There's good bits. We're not idiots. We see the bad bits, but we like the good bits.

The bad bits of the other options are too bad, and aren't worth losing the good bits of this option. The good bits of this option are very good, and are worth the bad bits.

What else, really, is there to say?

@nev yah, I tried to edit the OP, but I don't think I examined my own assumptions very well. To me, but apparently not everyone else, ‘describe images w/o text in them’ is just an obvious necessity for all consumers - and I always read the aggressive fediverse “you MUST alt ALL the things!!!" as an cover-the-other-bases, accessibility-focused mantra.

My question basically applies to images like this one: https://functional.cafe/@ELLIOTTCABLE/114232194309794010

Trying to describe the contents of a screenshot just feels so pointless, and like a turn-off to usage of the fediverse; but I see _so_ many accounts with something like "I will unfollow you if you post any images without alt-text.”

It feels like cargo-culting, and I want to check that assumption/feeling of mine against someone with actual experience as the target-market of these things.

Boosts apprec:

Do I have anybody in my social graph who’s vision-impaired enough to be the target of alt-text?

Realtalk: in 2025, is manual alt text (of OCR-able images, I mean) by humans still a necessary thing that we should be enforcing aggressive social pressure around? /=

(It feels a little stupid, if random non-specialized-accessibility tooling like consumer phone operating-systems now have near-perfect OCR. I'm not a user of the tools that _are_ specialized for accessibility, but I imagine that they're even more cutting-edge, and have been OCR'ing at least that well for several years now?)

But, like, I also recognize that I’m not in the target market, there. So where are we? Somebody catch me up. Is this Mastodon culture of alt-text-enforcement just cargo-culting at this point, or does it still have a purpose?