A reminder to please always add alt text to images as a service to users like me who can’t recognise any celebrity who became famous in the last ten years
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One of the reasons I appreciate Chappell Roan is that she goes out of her way to make herself visually distinctive enough for me to recognize her by sight. Everyone else is "person in their 20s who may or may not have been on Hot Ones"
You have posted this message before and since then I have tried to make an effort to use Alt text more. Not sure my descriptions help and sometimes I forget, but I'm working on it .
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Autogenerated alt-text is generally as useless as no alt-text at all, sadly. All it can do is "a cartoon character" when you need to know its's Bart Simpson. Please just regard writing informative alt-text as part of the task of posting, unless there is a reason you can't.
I couldn't name 3 celebrities who aren't on shark tank or ancient aliens, if you count the ancient aliens guy. Actually nvm I don't know his name either.
It's text added to images to describe them. The main purpose is to provide accessibility for the visually impaired, but it has numerous side benefits (look up "curb cut effect").
Bsky has a setting you (everyone) can (should) turn on, to remind you to add it every time you post an image.
Alt text describes the image itself for people who can't see it. A caption gives other information about the image that isn't contained within the image. For example, a caption might be "Girl with a pearl earring, by Vermeer" but the alt text would describe how the painting actually looks.
Even "girl with a pearl earring, by Vermeer" is a hell of a lot better for visually impaired people than the nothing at all some people habitually post.
It takes a little extra time per picture to do alt text, but it won't kill you and it's a great habit to get into
Waiting for the inevitable "actually alt text killed me last year" from the people who just angrily refuse to do the very tiniest little bit of extra effort to make Bluesky better
What are you trying? I add my photo, before I post there’s a little “+alt” symbol on top of the photo, and when I click it a little box appears at the bottom to write the description? Hope that helps
Do you already know what alt text is? Want to be rewarded as someone who regularly “gives a shit” about accessibility and other people skeeting on this website?
About 2/3rds of the time I see news about some "celebrity," I have to look them up to see who TF they are. And about half the time I do, I'm still mystified about WHY they are famous.
I’ve just been assuming all white male actors between 30-50 with short beards are named Chris and do action movies. But I don’t stick around to find out if I’m right because I got bored after seeing Chris again and left.
Choose an image, click the little ALT, type a description of the image in the box and click save. If it's a screenshot with text, type the text or at least a summary of it. It's really easy.
And, for all those posting indigenous American photos or memes, please take the time to acknowledge who it is you are using. It’s a great way to defeat cultural appropriation.
LMAO. Hard same from this chick, as well. But add it to everyone because I don't know who anyone is, in general. In fact, faces are kind of tricky for me. I just assume everyone looks like a swirling pit of chaos and act accordingly.
Oh thank you! I am so old I remember when there were only about a dozen celebrities to keep track of. Now there are dizzying numbers of them! There are so many that it is almost to the stage where nobody is really even a celebrity anymore because everybody is.
Also for when your internet is really slow and bluesky still has no data saver mode, so pics don't load and I don't wanna save them all just so I can look at them because that also takes forever.
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Go to Settings > Accessibility, then choose “Require alt text before posting.”
Though, I don’t even recognise the names half the time anyway.
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Me (behind bars): Realizing they never added alt text to gifs.
Should be on the bottom right.
Most people just don't bother changing the default (AI generated?) alt text that comes with gifs on here.
Which Chris, child? WHICH FUCKING CHRIS?!?
Bsky has a setting you (everyone) can (should) turn on, to remind you to add it every time you post an image.
It takes a little extra time per picture to do alt text, but it won't kill you and it's a great habit to get into
It’s intended for people with visual impairments who use screen readers but is generally helpful for everyone and provides accessibility.
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I’m fighting for my life out here
Only problem I have had was Attempted adding AFTER posting. Too Late
About 2/3rds of the time I see news about some "celebrity," I have to look them up to see who TF they are. And about half the time I do, I'm still mystified about WHY they are famous.
Why are you in my feed?
They're Tik Tok famous!
I never had Tik Tok.
Grandpa...
who are all these people?
Going from screenshot -> exact clip is magical.
From a Faceblind person.
Is it that a celebrity, a footballer, an actor or my dad 🤷🏻♀️
Had no idea what it was about for like a year 😂
Sabrina Carpenter
Timoflee Shababamet
Derp Flaundelderp VI
Alan Smithee
Now you have all of the new names!
me, every time i see Sabrina Carpenter: oh, THAT’S Sabrina Carpenter?
Set that and you can’t post an image without adding Alt text!