#LongPost

2026-03-01

@attemptedmurder: Just finished my last day of work for a long while, maybe ever. No work permit in thailand so from n - https://longpo.st/p/1387797 - #longpost: posts.pnut.io

2026-02-28
@Svenja Als blinde Gamerin kann ich dich das vielleicht mal fragen:

Besonders bei Screenshots aus Games oder, in meinem Fall, Renderings aus virtuellen 3-D-Welten, hast du da lieber kurze Beschreibungen, auch wenn die vieles im Unklaren lassen? Oder hast du lieber detaillierte Beschreibungen, weil du ja weder sehen noch von vornherein wissen kannst, wie genau da was aussieht?

Ich meine, ich gehe immer davon aus, daß es da draußen irgendjemanden gibt, der blind ist, der von den virtuellen Welten, in denen ich unterwegs bin, noch nie gehört hat, den aber dieses Thema so fasziniert, daß er gern auf Entdeckungsreise durch so eine Welt per Bild gehen möchte. Da ist ja alleine schon die Erkenntnis, daß virtuelle Welten mitnichten tot sind und tatsächlich einige wirklich in Betrieb sind.

Dann muß ich natürlich eine hochdetaillierte Beschreibung liefern, die meine Bildposts auf eine riesige Größe aufbläht. Dabei sehe ich mir aber nicht das Bild an, sondern ich gehe online und sehe mir alles direkt in der Welt vor Ort an, wo ich sehr viel mehr Details erkennen und beschreiben kann. Ein einzelnes Bild kann auch schon mal in einigen zehntausenden Zeichen beschrieben sein. Dazu kommt dann zusätzlich eine kürzere Beschreibung, die ich irgendwie in den Alt-Text quetschen muß, ohne 1.500 Zeichen zu überschreiten.

Zusätzlich zu den Beschreibungen brauche ich ja auch noch Erklärungen. Ich kann ja nicht erwarten, daß mein Publikum das alles kennt und sofort versteht, so obskur, wie die Welten sind. Ich kann auch nicht erwarten, daß mein Publikum sich selbst aufschlaut, zumal ich weiß, daß das sowieso kaum möglich ist. Und von meinem Publikum zu erwarten, daß es mich fragt, kann aus Mastodon-Sicht auch als schlechter Stil gelten. Also gehen in die lange Beschreibung in den Post auch noch Erklärungen mit rein.

Meinen persönlichen Rekord habe ich im Mai 2024 aufgestellt. Ein Bild von einem ziemlich großen, futuristischen, nicht sehr realistischen Gebäude mit großzügig verglaster Fassade, durch die viel vom Innenraum sichtbar ist. Gut 60.000 Zeichen an langer Beschreibung, davon etwa 40.000 für das Gebäude nebst Innenraum. Außerdem ein Alt-Text von 1.500 Zeichen, von denen etwas über 1.400 eine Kurzbeschreibung sind und der Rest auf die Langbeschreibung im Post hinweist. Die Langbeschreibung hat zwei Tage gebraucht, am dritten Morgen habe ich den Alt-Text geschrieben.

Ich habe mich da schon einschränken müssen. Im Gegensatz zu früheren Gepflogenheiten habe ich keine Bilder auf dem Bild in mehr Details beschrieben, als das Bild auf dem Bild selbst zeigt.

Würdest du sagen, das ist gerechtfertigt? Oder würdest du sagen, das ist totaler Overkill und überhaupt nicht gerechtfertigt, wenn die Wahrscheinlichkeit, daß so jemand zu meinem winzigen Publikum gehört, unendlich klein ist?

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #Bildbeschreibung #Bildbeschreibungen #BildbeschreibungenMeta #CWBildbeschreibungenMeta
2026-02-28
@Verena Mir geht's da ganz ähnlich. Allerdings betreibe ich pro Bild einen ziemlichen Aufwand.

Das ganze letzte Jahr über habe ich genau zweimal Bilder gepostet. Das waren alles Memes. Da bleibt zwar die visuelle Beschreibung im Alt-Text im Rahmen, aber weil meine Memeposts immer über extreme Nischenthemen sind, muß ich Erklärungen mitliefern. Nicht immer kann ich aber auf externe Erklärungen verlinken (wobei viele es am liebsten hätten, wenn ich gar nichts verlinken und alles selbst im Post beschreiben würde, um sich dann daran zu stören, daß der Post über 20.000 Zeichen lang ist).

Mein letzter Post mit ganz eigenen Bildern war am 28. Juli 2024. Da habe ich einige Stunden gebraucht für einen Block mit langen Beschreibungen nebst Erklärungen und Transkripten von ca. 20.000 Zeichen, einen Alt-Text mit genau 1.500 Zeichen und einen mit fast 1.500 Zeichen. Jedes Bild ist zweimal beschrieben, einmal im Post, einmal im Alt-Text. Das mache ich seit Jahren bei meinen eigenen Bildern immer so.

Für sowas habe ich aber nicht oft die Zeit und Energie. Seit Ende 2024 habe ich die Beschreibungen für eine Reihe an einfachen Avatarportraits in der Mache. Ich habe schon absichtlich den Bildern einen einfachen weißen Hintergrund gegeben, um den nicht auch noch detailliert beschreiben zu müssen. Der erste Schwung wird 67 Portraits auf 20 Bildern in wahrscheinlich 6 Posts werden, weil Mastodon nicht mehr als vier Bilder in einem Post kann.

Geschrieben habe ich bisher die Präambel für den ersten Post mit 14.000 Zeichen an nötigen Erklärungen und 5.000 Zeichen an visueller Beschreibung für alle Bilder gemeinsam, dazu die individuelle visuelle Beschreibung für das erste Bild mit drei Portraits in ca. 2.500 Zeichen. Wann dieser erste Schwung fertig beschrieben ist, steht noch in den Sternen. Dann kommt noch einer mit 62 Portraits und möglicherweise noch je einer mit fünf bzw. drei.

Ehrlich gesagt habe ich schon Bilder gemacht und mich hinterher dagegen entschieden, sie zu posten, weil ich sie einfach nicht adäquat hätte beschreiben können. Lieber poste ich sie gar nicht als mit unzureichenden Beschreibungen. Andere Motive habe ich gar nicht erst im Bild festgehalten, weil ich sie nicht hätte adäquat beschreiben können.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #Bildbeschreibung #Bildbeschreibungen #BildbeschreibungenMeta #CWBildbeschreibungenMeta
2026-02-28
I've learned something about alt-texts and image descriptions in the Fediverse again today: You must never talk about alt-texts and image descriptions. Ever.

Oh, sure you're allowed to give all those unsolicited lectures who don't provide alt-texts. Or alt-texts that don't describe the image. Or alt-texts that don't describe the image accurately. Or alt-texts that don't describe the image enough. Or alt-texts that don't describe the image in the right way. Just prepare to be counter-attacked for being an intrusive, mansplaining reply guy, at least in the latter three cases.

But what you must never do, under any circumstances, is attempt to discuss alt-texts and image descriptions. For that's ableist. Even if actually blind or visually-impaired Fediverse users may disagree. But since when does the Mastodon alt-text police listen to them? Or, in fact, to anyone?

You aren't allowed to ever ask if you're doing it right. For that's ableist, too.

You aren't even allowed to think about how to do it right. For that's ableist, too.

Just do it. Literally everything else is ableist.

Oh, but you absolutely must do it the right way. 100% by hand with no AI help whatsoever, even if you're blind or visually-impaired or autistic and unable to turn images into words. Absolutely accurately, at the right level of detail and in the right style. And you must know right off the bat what the right level of detail and the right style is. Without thinking about it.

Thing is: The Mastodon alt-text police have never agreed upon one standard level of detail, depending on the circumstances, and one standard style. Everyone of them thinks that their preferred way is the one and only gold standard, and everyone of them enforces their preferred way as if it's the one and only gold standard. All with no coordination with anyone else.

So you post an image, and you write an alt-text. Just like you think you're required to do. So far, so good.

Then comes Alice from the Mastodon alt-text police and calls you out as ableist because your image description isn't detailed enough. How dare you mention there's something in the image without describing what it looks like? You're supposed to know that you have to do that!

Okay, so you edit it according to Alice's requirements.

Then comes Bob from the Mastodon alt-text police and calls you out as ableist because your image description is too long and too excessively detailed. You're supposed to know that you have to keep your alt-texts short and succinct and only describe what's important within the context of your post! Fun fact: Your original alt-text would have been too detailed for Bob, too.

Needless to say that Alice and Bob have never talked to each other. However, this is not so much due to the Fediverse-wide, Mastodon-imposed ban on discussing alt-texts and image descriptions. It's because both are on Mastodon and only on Mastodon, and Mastodon with its complete lack of support for enclosed conversations, much less groups, is absolutely horrible for discussions.

The only way to get around this is to never post any images or other media. However, if you mention at some point that you don't post images because you're afraid of uncoordinated Mastodon alt-text police attacks because one or some of them find your image descriptions not up to their personal standards, you'll probably be attacked for allegedly trying to weasel out of your responsibility.

Of course, this also means that my WIP wiki about how to describe images and write alt-texts for the Fediverse is pointless. Not only pointless, but its very existence is ableist. And if someone else reads it, they're ableist, too. So don't click or tap that link.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #Ableist #Ableism #AbleismMeta #CWAbleismMeta
2026-02-28
@HarkMahlberg That's because Hubzilla has a feature called nomadic identity (https://joinfediverse.wiki/Nomadic_identity).

The channel that I'm replying from, here on hub.netzgemeinde.eu, has a clone on hub.hubzilla.de. A full, live, hot, bidirectional, near-real-time backup that I can use just like the original. This is a feature that some are trying to invent right now, but that "proto-Hubzilla" has had since 2012.

Within Hubzilla, both instances of my channel count has having the exact same identity, jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu, and as being one thing, only that this thing exists in two places simultaneously.

However, the non-nomadic Fediverse neither knows nor understands nomadic identity. It sees the two instances of my channel as two fully separate identities. Thus, I guess lots of Mastodon users must have blocked me for having an unlabelled bot.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Hubzilla #NomadicIdentity
2026-02-28
@afreytes, 👁️‍🗨️of🇵🇷 @Author-ized L.J. I always use a lot of hashtags. I have to. But many of my hashtags are not to increase discoverability. They're to trigger filtering, including filters that hide my content behind CW buttons. Such filters have been available on Mastodon since October, 2022 and here on Hubzilla (https://hubzilla.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubzilla, https://joinfediverse.wiki/Hubzilla) since its inception before Mastodon was even made.

This, by the way, is why some of my hashtags start with "CW": They're only there as content warning triggers/content warning substitutes, also because I have no means to add Mastodon-style content warnings to replies. Otherwise this comment would show the following CW on Mastodon:

CW: long (over 4,700 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, hashtag meta, content warning meta, character limit meta


However, unless I explicitly talk about certain hashtags, they all always go into the last line. And I think that even 20 hashtags in the last line of one of my posts or comments make people less uncomfortable than the post or comment exceeding 500 characters or myself talking about the Fediverse, especially talking about the Fediverse not only being Mastodon.

This comment, for example, would get the following hashtags (normally in the last line, but this time I'm talking about them):

  • Hashtags for content over 500 characters:
    • #Long (= this message is over 500 characters long which makes some people uncomfortable)
    • #LongPost (= this message is over 500 characters long which makes some people uncomfortable; two hashtags because I can't know who filters what)
    • #CWLong (= this message is over 500 characters long which makes some people uncomfortable; hashtag version of "CW: long")
    • #CWLongPost (= this message is over 500 characters long which makes some people uncomfortable; hashtag version of "CW: long"; two hashtags because I can't know who filters what)
  • Hashtags for when I talk about the Fediverse:
    • #FediMeta (= I'm talking about the Fediverse which makes some people uncomfortable)
    • #FediverseMeta (= I'm talking about the Fediverse which makes some people uncomfortable; two hashtags because I can't know who filters what)
    • #CWFediMeta (= I'm talking about the Fediverse which makes some people uncomfortable; hashtag version of "CW: Fediverse meta")
    • #CWFediverseMeta (= I'm talking about the Fediverse which makes some people uncomfortable; hashtag version of "CW: Fediverse meta"; two hashtags because I can't know who filters what)
  • Hashtags for when I talk about hashtags:
    • #Hashtag (= I'm talking about hashtags; also for discovery)
    • #Hashtags (= I'm talking about hashtags; also for discovery; two hashtags because I can't know who follows/searches for the singular and who follows/searches for the plural)
    • #HashtagMeta (= I'm talking about hashtags and what I think about them which makes some people uncomfortable)
    • #CWHashtagMeta (= I'm talking about hashtags and what I think about them which makes some people uncomfortable; hashtag version of "CW: hashtag meta")
  • Hashtags for when I talk about content warnings:
    • #CW (= I'm talking about content warnings; also for discovery)
    • #CWs (= I'm talking about content warnings; also for discovery; two hashtags because I can't know who follows/searches for/filters the singular and who follows/searches for/filters the plural)
    • #ContentWarning (= I'm talking about content warnings; also for discovery; multiple hashtags because I can't know who follows/searches for/filters what)
    • #ContentWarnings (= I'm talking about content warnings; also for discovery; multiple hashtags because I can't know who follows/searches for/filters what)
    • #CWMeta (= I'm talking about content warnings and what I think about them which makes some people uncomfortable)
    • #ContentWarningMeta (= I'm talking about content warnings and what I think about them which makes some people uncomfortable; also for discovery; multiple hashtags because I can't know who filters what)
  • Hashtags for when I talk about character limits:
    • #CharacterLimit (= I'm talking about character limits; also for discovery)
    • #CharacterLimits (= I'm talking about character limits; also for discovery; two hashtags because I can't know who follows/searches for the singular and who follows/searches for the plural)
    • #CharacterLimitMeta (= I'm talking about character limits and what I, as someone with over 16.7 million characters, think about them which makes some people uncomfortable)
    • #CWCharacterLimitMeta (= I'm talking about character limits and what I, as someone with over 16.7 million characters, think about them which makes some people uncomfortable; hashtag version of "CW: character limit meta")
2026-02-28
Just the other day, I found something out. Something very inconvenient about Misskey and maybe also the Forkeys.

It should be commonly known that Misskey has a local limit of 3,000 characters for posts (which it refers to as "notes"). What is not so well-known is that Misskey has a limit of about 8,000 characters, probably 8,192 or so, for inbound messages, ironically fewer than this post is long. Also, it has a limit of 512 characters for alt-text, both locally and in-bound.

Mastodon has a character limit for in-bound content, too, at least for Note-type objects (not for Article-type objects because it refuses to render them fully and links to the original instead). To my best knowledge, it rejects messages with over 100,000 characters. As for its 1,500-charater limit for alt-text, it enforces that by truncating alt-text that's longer.

Misskey, in contrast, truncates everything that exceeds its limits while still letting it in. If your post is longer than the inbound limit of ca. 8,000, all excess characters are chopped off and thrown away. If your alt-text is longer than 512 characters, all excess characters are chopped off and thrown away.

I don't know which Forkey behaves how in this regard, seeing as all Forkeys I know about have a configurable local post character limit that can be adjusted to well over 8,000. But even if the inbound limit is configurable, too, I don't think any *key admin cranks it over 60,000 or over 70,000 or over 100,000. It's simply unimaginable that someone, anyone, could ever post that much at once if your idea of the Fediverse is pure microblogging.

Also, I don't know what *key users do when they come across a truncated post or what blind or visually-impaired *key users do when they come across a truncated alt-text. Do they even suspect that it's a truncated copy of something that's longer at its source and then go check the source? Either way, it's very inconvenient.

It's especially inconvenient for me. My longest posts by a gigantic margin are image posts with original images. They always have a long image description block in the post itself that tends to be tens of thousands of characters long. It contains highly detailed visual descriptions of all images in the post. It contains all explanations necessary to understand the post, the images and the descriptions. It contains verbatim transcripts of all bits of text within the borders of the image that I can read, no matter whether or not my audience can.

In addition, each image has a shorter description in the alt-text, along with a bit that announces the long description, including where to find it. I even used to explain how to get to that description for Mastodon users for whom the summary and content warning hides the post text, but not the images, depending on which Mastodon version and frontend they use. This alone took up several hundred characters in the alt-text. All in all, I got to a point in which my alt-texts always ended up either at precisely 1,500 characters or just a few characters short.

I myself am not really bound to character limits. I used to post images here on Hubzilla where I have over 16.7 million characters for the post, including all alt-texts. Now I post them on (streams) where I have over 24 million characters. I could theoretically write alt-texts as long as I want to, seeing as, unlike on Mastodon, they aren't separate text fields; instead, they're being woven into the image-embedding markup code in the post text.

Still, I stick to a maximum of 1,500 characters for alt-text to keep Mastodon from truncating it. If you post images into the Fediverse, the main audience for your alt-text is on Mastodon, and most of them don't understand that there's something, anything, out there in the Fediverse that does not work exactly like Mastodon. And 1,500 characters can be tight already.

But if I have to stay within Misskey's limits, I can hardly post images anymore. At least not with appropriate descriptions and explanations.

Since late 2024, I have been working on-and-off on a series of fairly simple avatar portraits or rather their image descriptions. The idea is for the long description to consist of a preamble that starts with a general summary, followed by explanations, then followed by visual descriptions of what all images in the post have in common. Next come the individual descriptions of each image. Each post shall have three or four images with three or four portraits each, all in the same pose, all with only minor differences in outfits, all with a neutral, bright white background.

In addition, of course, each image shall have an alt-text, and none of the alt-texts shall depend on each other.

Now, the problem is that I have to describe three or four individual portraits in each alt-text. I'm actually struggling to squeeze such a description plus the note that announces the long description into 1,500 characters, especially if I want to fulfill Veronica Lewis a.k.a. Veronica With Four Eyes' requirements for outfit descriptions to a tee in the alt-text as well (https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-write-alt-text-for-casual-outfits/, https://veroniiiica.com/writing-image-descriptions-for-red-carpet-outfits/; see also https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-write-alt-text-image-descriptions-visually-impaired/ and https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-create-visual-descriptions/).

But in 512 characters so that even Misskey users won't get a severely truncated version? This is absolutely impossible. Even if I limit the long description announcement to some 100 characters, even if I didn't walk people through how to get to the long description, I'd have fewer than 140 characters on average to describe each individual outfit.

The long description won't fare any better. Currently, the preamble starts with some 14,000 characters of explanations, most of which are necessary to understand the visual descriptions. But when Misskey goes and truncates the post at the 8,000-something mark, Misskey users won't even get to any visual description because all visual descriptions would be chopped off.

What makes matters worse is that the preamble grows the longer, the easier to understand I make it and the less I leave people with unexplained technical or jargon terms which you shouldn't use in image descriptions at all anyway. So the next time I go through it and rewrite it to make it easier to understand, I'll also make it even longer than it already is.

But what if I simply cut all the explanations? For one, I'd leave people to their own devices to understand extremely obscure niche content. They won't. My explanations aren't 14,000 characters long because I've artificially inflated them, but because there is so much to know before you understand the post and the images and the descriptions.

Besides, the visual descriptions alone won't fit into 8,192 characters either. What I currently have is over 5,000 characters of common visual description for all portraits in all images plus about 2,500 characters of individual visual description for the three portraits in the first image. That's over 7,500 characters altogether already. And I still have to describe nine portraits in another three images. The post will end up with some 15,000 characters of visual descriptions unless they grow longer when I simplify them again.

I guess users of Misskey or any Forkey will still have to put up with truncated alt-texts and truncated long descriptions in the future. But my future image posts will contain a paragraph at the beginning that explains that the post and/or the alt-text may be truncated on Misskey and the Forkeys, and that both are uncut at the source. Still, this means that *key users will have to put up with the extra hassle of opening my original post at a source with a quite cumbersome UI. And I've got my doubts that this UI is really accessible.

Unfortunately, this also means that *key users won't get any hashtags along with these posts. But then again, the handling of Identi.ca-style/Friendica-style hashtags with the number sign outside the link is broken on all *keys and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #Calckey #Firefish #Sharkey #CherryPick #Iceshrimp #Iceshrimp-JS #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #A11y #Accessibility
seanpm2001 🇺🇦️🇬🇱seanpm2001@techhub.social
2026-02-27

11/11🧶
I have made a weaker anti-suicide message in the past, but I have not followed through on it as I should have. This time is different, I feel this message is probably one of the most important things I will accomplish this month.

I am going to be taking a mental health day today, but I am not going to stop my daily work. Please feel free to reach out if you want to. I have some issues I am still working out.

You matter. Don't ever forget that! And NEVER let anyone tell you otherwise!!

#suicidehotline #suicide #help #mentalhealth #health #mental #ocd #life #agnosticism #depression #ocd #autism #youmatter #dontgiveup #longpost

2026-02-27
@洪 民憙 (Hong Minhee) :nonbinary: Two people you may consider consulting in this case:
  • @Mike Macgirvin ?️. He invented nomadic identity in 2011. He was the first to implement it in Red (which became Hubzilla in 2015) in 2012.
    His streams repository, a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork?) of Hubzilla, is the place where he laid the foundations of FEP-ef61 out of necessity because he was working on nomadic identity via ActivityPub (Hubzilla and (streams) use their own protocols for that), and it was the first nomadic server software that had it implemented.
    Also, his Forte, itself a fork of the streams repository, is the only Fediverse server software that uses nothing but ActivityPub to establish nomadic identity and relies on FEP-ef61 to do that. Basically, it's (streams) with no Nomad and Zot6 support, and syncing between clones is triggered by a cronjob because, unlike Zot6 and Nomad, ActivityPub doesn't provide any ways to trigger immediate, near-real-time syncs.
    Mike hasn't been caught online for quite a while, though, although he's still working on both (streams) and Forte.
  • @silverpill is gradually turning Mitra from a typical non-nomadic, account/login-equals-identity, one-identity-per-account Fediverse software into something that's every bit as nomadic as Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte while casting everything necessary for this process into FEPs.
    I'm not sure whether this will include containerising identities like the channels on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte and allowing multiple fully independent identities on the same account, just like the same identity (channel) would be able to exist on independent accounts on different servers.

That said, is your goal only to use FEP-ef61 for identities that are tied to their accounts and their servers? Or is your goal fully-fledged nomadic identity on the same level as on Forte?

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Mitra #NomadicIdentity #FEP_ef61
2026-02-27

This account, this corner of the fediverse, has become one of the places I let those questions be noisy in public. What does healing mean when the conditions that harmed you are not gone, only rearranged into more respectable shapes? What actually happens inside a counselling relationship when disability or neurodivergence is present but unnamed, or misnamed, or politely ignored? How do we begin to notice the ways power and unspoken norms travel through even the most well-intentioned helping professions? How do we hold culture as something we are constantly creating and being created by, something we may need to grieve and interrogate and occasionally celebrate, often all at once, sometimes in the space of a single conversation?

I keep circling back to the interior labour of this work. The slow, repetitive practice of building emotional regulation when your nervous system's default setting is red alert. The awkwardness of learning self-compassion when sharp self-criticism has been your most reliable survival tool. The moments that feel like failure because you find yourself reacting in an old way, when in reality this is precisely how recovery moves, looping back on itself, revisiting old ground with slightly different eyes. The way trauma and joy can sit shoulder to shoulder in the same hour, the same therapy session, the same breath, and how unnerving and holy that can feel.

Rauch and Ansari suggest that silence can be deliberate and strategic, a form of self-regulation rather than withdrawal, a boundary rather than an absence. I think about this in relation to the freeze response, to the moments in my own history when going quiet was not giving up but holding on. The body stills because there are no safe words yet. Sometimes the silence is the story. And learning to hear it as such, to receive it without rushing to fill or fix it, is one of the things I am still practising, in music and in therapy and in the ordinary, unglamorous dailiness of trying to stay present in a life that sometimes arrives all at once.

I am not arriving anywhere with a finished theory of how any of this is supposed to work. I am coming, again and again, with fragments and questions and a stubborn intention to tell the truth as I understand it in the moment I am writing. That truth is often partial, often shifting. My understanding of myself, of trauma, of disability, of care, keeps moving, and I want it to. I would rather be inconsistent and alive to new information than seamless and rigidly wrong.

If you are still reading, you are already participating in something I care about. A space that treats complexity as ordinary rather than excessive. Where being too much is not an accusation but raw material. Where intense feeling and rigorous thought are both welcome at the same table. Where healing is not a linear journey toward a fixed destination but something more like learning to live inside unresolved chords without pretending they have resolved. Where music is both metaphor and method, both a way of speaking about change and a way of practising it in the body.

True silence does not exist. What we call silence is simply what we have not yet learned to hear. The fullness of life in quieter tones. The heartbeat of thought. The whispered rhythm of resilience. The steady murmur of healing is underway. And when we learn to tune into the music between the notes and into the truth held in breath, we do more than survive. We begin to sing again. This time, in a voice that is entirely our own.

I am not here to introduce myself so much as to keep turning up alongside you. To keep writing from the middle of things, not only from the rare polished moments that look good in hindsight. To keep noticing the small, ordinary, unglamorous ways humans find their way back to themselves, even inside systems that were never set up with them in mind. If any of these threads brush against something in your own story, then you are part of the imagined audience I write towards. And maybe, in a slow, imperfect, occasionally dissonant way, part of the choir that is still learning how to hear itself.

#AuDHD #Neurodivergent #Blind #Deafblind #Disabled #DisabilityJustice #MadStudies #Psychology #Counselling #Therapy #Trauma #TraumaRecovery #Neurodiversity #MentalHealth #ChronicStress #Healing #WindowOfTolerance #LivedExperience #CareWork #Culture #Power #Normality #Access #Inclusion #Ableism #Music #ClassicalMusic #ChoralMusic #Choir #Singing #Writing #PersonalEssay #Silence #LongPost #Fediversea (2/2)

2026-02-24
@David O'Brien I see a few issues with it.

For starters, it only knows two options: Either the image contains no text whatsoever, or the image is text. It does not cover e.g. photos that have text somewhere in them. I myself would add at least one more option to the first question so it can distinguish between an image with zero text, an image with some text and an image that literally is text. In fact, I'd add some more questions regarding text.

A question that's critically important but missing: What are you writing your alt-text for? Options should include:
  • WordPress with no ActivityPub connectivity, another blogging platform that is not connected to the Fediverse, a website
  • WordPress with ActivityPub connectivity, Flipboard, Ghost, WriteFreely, Plume
  • Mastodon with 500 characters
  • Mastodon with raised character limit, Mastodon fork, Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey, Sharkey, Iceshrimp, any other microblogging application in the Fediverse
  • Friendica, (streams) with ActivityPub on, Forte
  • Hubzilla with ActivityPub on
  • diaspora*, Hubzilla with ActivityPub off, (streams) with ActivityPub off
  • Non-Fediverse social network/social media
Each option would lead to a different set of following questions, based on two factors:
  • Does the post enter the Fediverse as a Note-type object, an Article-type object or not at all?
  • How many characters are available for a long description in addition to the alt-text? (This will only be suggested under certain circumstances.)
This is because the rules change when Mastodon users are able to read your content in their timelines and apps. Mastodon's alt-text police entirely consists of fully sighted amateurs who neither know nor care about W3C, WCAG etc., and they aren't beyond sanctioning the kind of alt-text that professional Web developers and accessibility experts preach just because they personally find it sub-standard or not detailed enough or whatever.

I could think of a whole lot more questions regarding the context, the audience (including, for Fediverse content, whether it's public or restricted to a certain audience/private), how much the audience can be expected to know about the topic and the contents of the image and how likely the audience will be how curious about everything.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #AltTextPolice #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta
2026-02-21
@Tanya Here are three examples that I've actually posted into the Fediverse (on another channel than the one I'm replying from now, so don't go looking for them). Mind you, they adhere to the alt-text rules for the Fediverse rather than those for websites and blogs, and yes, there is a difference.

Example no. 1: Meme directly based on one template with overlaid captions.
Screen capture from the live-action film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, edited into an image macro. It shows a close-up of the actor Sean Bean as the character Boromir. He is speaking with a concerned expression on his face. His right hand has taken the shape of a ring with all fingers with the thumb and and index finger touching. The image has two large pieces of text. The one at the top is, “One does not simply,” and the one at the bottom continues with, “implement FEP-EF61.” An explanation of the meme template used in this picture and background information can be found in the post. If you are on Mastodon, Misskey or one of its forks, the post is hidden behind a summary and content warning. If you are on Pleroma, Akkoma, Friendica, Hubzilla or (streams), the explanations follow right below this image.


Example no. 2: Meme directly based on one template with extra space for captions.
Image macro, based on a digital photograph of a fluffy and very chubby calico cat sitting on the floor on its hindquarters and looking upward at the bowl of Fruit Loops in the bottom left corner of the image. At the top of the image, there is a very light grey space with a two-part caption. It starts with: “Daniel Supernault:<em> announces a TikTok clone for the Fediverse.” This is followed by a blank line and, “Fediverse users:”. Between the grey space and the image, there is a narrower white space with another caption that has been part of the image for longer than the grey space. The caption speaks for the cat, “bröther may i have some lööps”, with the “o”s being umlauts.


Example no. 3: Self-made collage using multiple templates (contains a Japanese profanity, though, but I didn't want to alter it).
Collage of captioned meme images of various kinds in two rows. In the top left, there are two smugly grinning Wojaks, facing half each other, half the audience. The one on the left has the diaspora* logo above his head and his hand on his chin in a pensive gesture. The one to his right is wearing a black tuxedo with a bowtie, and he has the Mastodon logo above his head. These two have a common caption below them: “We're beyond such peasantry as that filthy and grubby PHP. We demand only the best: Ruby on Rails.“ Slightly right of centre, still in the top row, there is a bearded Soyjak with glasses, crying with his mouth wide open, pink eyes and streams of tears running down his cheeks. He is facing towards the left. Above his head is the Pleroma logo. His caption is, in all-caps and ending in five exclamation marks, “Noooooooo, Elixir is the way to go and PostgreSQL!” In the top right, there is another bearded and bespectacled Wojak, facing towards the left again. This one is angry with the Misskey logo above his head. With the same open mouth as the one to his left, he shouts, “Utter heresy, there is no match for TypeScript and Vue.js, baka!” The bottom row is taken up by three creepy-looking brownish moths with glowing eyes. The left one is facing towards the right with the Friendica logo above it. The other two are facing towards the left with the logos of Hubzilla and the streams repository above them. Their common caption is, in huge all caps and with an umlaut, “Lämp”.


The original posts also have explanations in the post text for those who don't understand the image and the description which I expect to be the norm. They went into the post text because explanations must never go into the alt-text, and because they wouldn't fit into a maximum of 1,500 characters anyway. I would post these explanations as well, but you've only asked for alt-texts, and besides, these explanations tend to be even longer than the alt-texts.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #FediMeme #FediMemes #FediverseMeme #FediverseMemes #Profanity #Swearing #CWProfanity #CWSwearing
2026-02-20
@Kristian 🌒 @💀 Mirko 💀 @aliceif :totally_a_real_lesbian_flag: As far as I know, yes.

They don't even reject these posts. If they did, I'd be able to see that in the delivery report. But they actually do let these posts in, check the length and then delete them before forwarding them to inboxes, something that Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte don't notice.

I'm not sure if that's limited to Note-type objects, though. But Hubzilla has no way to send Article-type objects, not even optionally, because the devs refuse to re-implement it unless Mastodon starts supporting full HTML rendering with all bells and whistles and gives up that title-summary-and-link-to-the-original hack.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta
2026-02-20
@💀 Mirko 💀 @Kristian 🌒 Genuine Hubzilla posts (character limit = 16,777,215 = maximum capacity of the database field):

https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/item/c8a14063-b4e2-48fa-baf9-cb4faef7225b
https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/channel/jupiter_rowland?mid=c8a14063-b4e2-48fa-baf9-cb4faef7225b
48,977 characters, posted October 27th, 2023, all in one go, guaranteed.

https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/item/f8ac991d-b64b-4290-be69-28feb51ba2a7
https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/channel/jupiter_rowland?mid=f8ac991d-b64b-4290-be69-28feb51ba2a7
62,514 characters, posted May 16th, 2024, all in one go, guaranteed.

https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/item/8c2b4728-dda5-498b-9f84-2f11e163a4a5
https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/channel/jupiter_rowland?mid=8c2b4728-dda5-498b-9f84-2f11e163a4a5
76,780 characters, posted September 24th, 2023, all in one go, guaranteed.

(If you can't open either of these links, say so, and I'll reply with full quote-posts of these three posts.)

All character counts are raw, i.e. the actual number of characters visible. The characters are not counted the Mastodon way (= summary/CW counts into the character count, links are always 23 characters). BBcode markup is not counted in either, nor are the alt-texts, although both internally add to the character count.

Important to know: Local character limits aren't necessarily inbound character limits. For example, Mastodon is hard-coded to a maximum of 500 characters internally, but (AFAIK) it accepts posts coming in from outside up to 100,000 characters.

Likewise, Misskey is hard-coded to 3,000 characters internally. The Forkeys have a configurable internal character limit. But their inbound character limit is higher, hard-coded to ca. 8,000 as @aliceif :totally_a_real_lesbian_flag: has said.

Pleroma and Akkoma have configurable internal character limits that default to 5,000, but AFAIK a hard-coded inbound character limit of 20,000.

In all these cases, longer posts coming in from outside are immediately deleted from the inbox.

#Long #LongPost #LongPosts #LongToot #LongToots #CWLong #CWLongPost #LongPostMeta #CWLongPostMeta #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterCount #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #Hubzilla #Mastodon #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #Pleroma #Akkoma
2026-02-19
@David Mitchell :CApride: It's generally recommended to give a short summary first and then continue with a detailed description.

That said, I myself would never describe an image on more than two levels of detail. My descriptions of my own original images, all being renderings from very obscure 3-D virtual worlds, tend to become the longest image descriptions in the whole Fediverse by a large margin. I actually have to write two descriptions per image: a long, fully detailed one that goes into the post itself plus a "short" one for the alt-text that still helps fill up the 1,500 characters enforced by Mastodon, Misskey and their respective forks all the way.

I've been recommended to write my long image descriptions on multiple levels of detail. But I'm so very much not going to
  • give a summary of 100 characters
  • then describe everything roughly in 2,000 characters
  • then describe everything again with more details in 10,000 characters
  • then describe everything yet again with even more details in 50,000 characters

I prefer checking and examining each detail only once to checking and examining each detail three or more times over, once for each description pass. So there's a short summary, and then comes one fully detailed description with all necessary explanations and transcripts of all pieces of text.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta
2026-02-18
@Evan Prodromou
- Dozens of FEPs under development

...and they're usually only implemented by those who maintain them. These and their works, in turn, mostly stay in the shadows while the bigger players in the Fediverse remain blissfully unaware of them.

Pretty much exactly what @silverpill has been doing for a while now.

- New work like quote posts from Mastodon

Technology taken over from GoToSocial.

The principle of how these quote-posts are done taken over from Misskey.

And quote-posts themselves were introduced to the Fediverse as early as May, 2010, by what's known as Friendica today.

This is what @silverpill meant with:
Features that already exist somewhere in Fediverse presented as new inventions.

Mastodon presented their quotes as if they had just introduced an all-new, totally revolutionary feature to the Fediverse. In fact, however, the Fediverse had had quote-posts for a decade and a half at that point.

Let's all face it: The main hindrance in Fediverse development is Mastodon. It's a painfully incomplete implementation of a hopelessly outdated version of the ActivityPub spec. At the same time, its cult-like followers see it as the one and only gold standard and the reference implementation of ActivityPub. They believe that Gargron has invented both ActivityPub and the Fediverse because, frankly, that's what the Mastodon folks want everyone to believe.

If the Fediverse had some fair competition, then Mastodon would have to catch up with software like Misskey or Akkoma or Mitra and eventually powerhouses like (streams) or Forte. But what Mastodon lacks in features, it makes up for with sheer market power. The loudest voices that promote the Fediverse don't actually promote the Fediverse; they only promote Mastodon.

The features of the non-Mastodon Fediverse are unknown and outright unimaginable both on Mastodon and outside the Fediverse. And just about everyone believes that Mastodon is as perfect and fully-featured Fediverse software as it ever comes. Pretty much the only ones who don't are those who daily-drive non-Mastodon Fediverse software.

This actually goes as far as Mastodon users trying their hardest to force e.g. Friendica users to throw away their own culture, switch to Mastodon's culture and abstain from using some 80% of Friendica's features because they aren't covered by Mastodon's culture. At the same time, Mastodon users staunchly refuse to adopt any part of any non-Mastodon Fediverse culture. This means that even if non-Mastodon Fediverse devs introduce new features, they'd better not let Mastodon users know.

And so Mastodon can get away both with a laughable set of features, with completely ignoring not only FEPs, but also large parts of the ActivityPub spec, with advertising features which just about the whole rest of the Fediverse has had for years as completely new original inventions of their own, and with implementing non-standard stuff and forcing the rest of the Fediverse to implement "proprietary", non-standard Mastodon developments.

CC: @julian

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #MastodonCentricity #MastodonNormativity
2026-02-16
@jeSuisatire  neindochohh ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ Deinen Worten liegen jede Menge Fehlannahmen zugrunde.

Erstens die Fehlannahme, daß es bei ausnahmslos jedem Bild etwas gibt, das im Kontext wichtig ist, und sehr viel mehr, das im Kontext unwichtig ist. Daß das Unwichtige dann beim Beschreiben des Bildes völlig ignoriert werden kann.

Das stimmt so nicht. Es gibt durchaus Bilder, bei denen auch im Kontext nichts wichtiger ist als irgendetwas anderes, bei denen alles gleichermaßen wichtig ist. Kannst du dir nicht vorstellen? Landschaftspanoramen beispielsweise. Und sei es von Stadtlandschaften.

Ich selbst habe einige Bilder gepostet, auf denen nichts im Kontext wichtiger ist als irgendetwas anderes. Das hier oder https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/photo/4dbbe1c0-e25d-4ff1-8b99-9d23126f377a-0.png das hier oder (CW: Augenkontakt) das hier oder (CW: Augenkontakt) das hier oder (CW: Augenkontakt) das hier. Jedes Mal ging es um die Bilder als Ganze und nicht um einzelne spezifische Elemente darin.

Zweitens die Fehlannahme, daß, wenn es einen Fokus auf bestimmte Elemente im Kontext gibt, jeder, aber auch wirklich jeder da draußen definitiv nur an diesen bestimmten Elementen interessiert ist. 100% garantiert. Da ist es wirklich unvorstellbar, daß das irgendwie auch anders sein könnte.

Das kann es aber durchaus. Bei meinen eigenen Bildern muß ich genau davon ausgehen, daß das passieren kann.

Meine Bilder sind keine Real-Life-Fotos. Meine Bilder sind keine Screenshots von sozialen Medien. Also nichts von dem, was 99% des Bilderaufkommens im Fediverse ausmacht. Meine Bilder sind Renderings aus virtuellen Welten. Noch dazu aus sehr obskuren virtuellen Welten, von denen annähernd niemand je gehört hat.

Die allermeisten Menschen glauben ja, das Thema "virtuelle Welten" und "Metaverse" hat sich ein für allemal erledigt. Das war eine Totgeburt. Das ist nicht passiert, das wird nie passieren. Während es den allermeisten komplett am Arsch vorbeigeht, dir wahrscheinlich auch, gibt es aber auch diejenigen, die darüber traurig sind, die aber trotzdem nicht wissen, daß es tatsächlich existierende virtuelle Welten gibt.

Dann komme ich daher mit Bildern aus virtuellen Welten. Nicht KI-erzeugt, sondern tatsächlich in wirklichen virtuellen Welten gerendert. Noch dazu mit dem Hashtag #⁠Metaverse, denn die Welten, in denen ich mich bewege, verwenden den Begriff "Metaverse" nicht nur im täglichen Sprachgebrauch, sondern nachweislich schon seit 2007, 14 Jahre länger als Zuckerberg.

Da hängen dann doch solche Leute vor Aufregung ganz vorne auf der Stuhlkante. Was machen die dann, angenommen, auf den Bildern sind im Kontext nur ein paar Dinge wichtig? Gucken die sich nur die wichtigen Dinge an? Überfliegen sie die Bilder nur?

Nein, tun sie nicht. Statt dessen gucken sie sich all die ganzen Details im Bild an. Wichtig oder nicht. Immerhin haben sie gerade eine ganz neue Welt entdeckt. Ach was, ein ganz neues Universum! Ein virtuelles 3-D-Universum. Etwas, was sie so sehnsüchtig erwartet hatten, wovon sie aber bis vor fünf Sekunden annahmen, so etwas würde es nie geben. Und wie sich herausgestellt hat, gibt es das tatsächlich! Und jetzt gehen sie mit ihren Augen in diesem neuen Universum auf spannende Entdeckungsreise.

Aber was, wenn so eine Person blind oder sehgeschädigt ist? Dann kann sie das Bild nicht sehen. Dann kann sie nicht auf Entdeckungsreise in diesem neu entdeckten Universum gehen. Aber vielleicht will sie das trotzdem. Und Inklusion und Barrierefreiheit bedeuten, daß sie dazu dieselben Chancen haben muß wie sehende Personen.

Damit diese blinde oder sehgeschädigte Person diese Chancen hat, muß ich also jedes Bild bis in alle Details beschreiben. Übrigens kann ich deshalb nur noch relativ einfache Bilder posten, die keinen großen Beschreibungsaufwand mit sich bringen, weil sie kaum Details enthalten. Bilder wie (CW: Augenkontakt) dieses kann ich heute nicht mehr posten.

Drittens die Fehlannahme, daß es nur um visuelle Beschreibungen geht.

Ich kann nur insofern zustimmen, daß Alt-Text niemals Erklärungen enthalten darf, weil nicht jeder auf Alt-Texte zugreifen kann.

Damit komme ich auch zur vierten Fehlannahme, die auf Mastodon extrem weit verbreitet ist: Bildbeschreibung ist immer gleich Alt-Text. Tatsächlich ist es nur dann ein Alt-Text, wenn es hinter dem Bild liegt als Ersatz für das Bild. Wenn es hingegen im Post über oder unter dem Bild steht, ist es kein Alt-Text. Dann ist es einfach nur eine Bildbeschreibung.

Ich lese immer wieder von Mastodon, daß Alt-Texte nicht nur nützlich für Blinde oder Sehbehinderte sind. Daß sie auch erklären können, was das Bild zeigt, damit diejenigen, die von dem, was auf dem Bild ist, keine Ahnung haben, es verstehen. Noch einmal: Das gehört nicht in den Alt-Text.

Wenn man allerdings eine zusätzliche lange Bildbeschreibung im Post selbst hat, dann sind darin Erklärungen durchaus nicht nur erlaubt, sondern erwünscht. Genau diese Erklärungen fordert Mastodon ein.

Natürlich muß man dann auch zusehen, daß die Erklärungen verständlich sind. Eine der Regeln der Bildbeschreibungen ist ja, keine Fachsprache und keinen Fachjargon zu verwenden oder, falls das absolut unausweichlich ist, die Fach- oder Jargonbegriffe an Ort und Stelle sofort zu erläutern. Je nischiger und obskurer der Bildinhalt und/oder das Thema des Bildes ist, kann das durchaus dazu führen, daß man auf drei, vier, fünf Ebenen erklären muß, bis man beim Wissensstand des Publikums angelangt ist, auf dem man aufbauen kann.

Das widerlegt auch die fünfte Fehlannahme, die hier meines Erachtens zumindest impliziert ist und ihrerseits auch weit verbreitet ist: Die Leute können doch fragen, wenn sie etwas wissen wollen.

Sie wollen aber nicht fragen. Sie wollen nicht fragen müssen. Selbst googlen wollen sie auch nicht. Ach ja, und Links zu Erklärungen wollen sie auch nicht, denn dann geht ihr Browser auf (weil ja heutzutage jeder nur Apps benutzt), und Websites hinter Links sind nicht garantiert barrierefrei, und sie mißtrauen Links generell und so weiter und so fort. Nein, statt dessen hat alles bitteschön an Ort und Stelle im Post erklärt zu werden. Und zwar so, daß jeder es versteht, ohne noch einmal nachhaken zu müssen.

Den Leuten zuzumuten, sich fehlende Informationen eigenmächtig zu beschaffen, ist anmaßend und, wenn es besonders auch Menschen mit Behinderungen trifft, ableistisch. Mag sein, daß einige wenige das anders sehen und durchaus bereit sind, wegen einzelner Details oder Erklärungen nachzufragen. Aber diese Attitüde existiert, zumal viele Mastodon-Nutzer erwarten, auf Mastodon in jeglicher Hinsicht in Watte gepackt zu werden, und diese Erwartungen auch vollumfänglich erfüllt sehen wollen.

Sechstens die implizierte Fehlannahme, daß Mastodons Alt-Text-Polizei eine homogene, in sich geschlossene, koordiniert agierende Gruppe ist, siebtens die implizierte Fehlannahme, daß Mastodons Alt-Text-Polizei im Auftrag der Blinden und Sehgeschädigten handelt, um die Erfüllung derer konkreten Bedürfnisse einzufordern, und achtens die implizierte Fehlannahme, daß Mastodons Alt-Text-Polizei selbst blind oder sehbehindert ist.

Auch das ist alles falsch. Die Alt-Text-Polizei ist samt und sonders sehend. "Alt-Text-Polizei" ist nämlich nicht, wenn man sich einfach nur wünscht, daß Bilder beschrieben werden. "Alt-Text-Polizei" ist, wenn man nicht nur Bildbeschreibungen und Alt-Texte mit aller Härte einfordert, sondern deren Fehlen nach eigenem Ermessen sanktioniert und inzwischen auch im eigenen Ermessen Mindestanforderungen an ausreichende Alt-Texte und Bildbeschreibungen stellt und auch deren Nichteinhalten sanktioniert.

Allein deswegen kann die Alt-Text-Polizei nur sehend sein: Um die Einhaltung der Mindestanforderungen zu überprüfen, müssen Alt-Text-Polizisten ihrerseits in der Lage sein, die beschriebenen Bilder einwandfrei zu sehen, um sie dann mit den Beschreibungen abgleichen zu können.

Außerdem sprechen sich Alt-Text-Polizisten untereinander nicht ab. Die kennen sich gegenseitig vielfach überhaupt nicht. Das sind alles einsame Wölfe, die auf eigene Faust agieren.

Sie glauben auch nur zu wissen, was die Blinden und Sehgeschädigten wollen. Mit denen sprechen sie sich nämlich auch nicht ab. Weil die Blinden und Sehgeschädigten fast ausnahmslos und die Alt-Text-Polizei tatsächlich ausnahmslos auf Mastodon ist, haben sie gar nicht die Möglichkeit, sich effektiv auszutauschen, weil puristisches Mikroblogging dafür völlig ungeeignet ist.

Und so stellt jeder Alt-Text-Polizist andere Mindestanforderungen an tolerable Alt-Texte und Bildbeschreibungen. Häufig sind diese um einiges höher als das, was den allermeisten Blinden oder Sehgeschädigten nach deren eigenen Aussagen tatsächlich genügen würde.

Es geht längst nicht mehr nur darum, daß es überhaupt einen Alt-Text gibt. Nein, dieser Alt-Text muß garantiert zu 100% handgeschrieben sein, er muß 100% akkurat sein (im Gegensatz zu KI-Slop, weshalb KI-Beschreibungen nicht toleriert werden), alle Texte im Bild müssen im Alt-Text Wort für Wort, Zeichen für Zeichen haargenau transkribiert sein, und er muß einen gewissen Mindestdetailgrad erreichen. Wo dieser Mindestdetailgrad liegt, liegt im Ermessen jedes einzelnen Alt-Text-Polizisten.

Ich schreibe meine Bildbeschreibungen auch für die Alt-Text-Polizei. Zum einen möchte ich ihr signalisieren: Ja, ich gebe mir Mühe. Ich mache mir Gedanken darüber, was eine gute Bildbeschreibung braucht, und ich setze das dann auch um. Und ich betreibe hier keine nachlässige Schlamperei und lasse keine Details aus, die vielleicht irgendjemanden interessieren könnten.

Zum anderen ist damit weitestgehend garantiert, daß ich bis auf weiteres die Mindestanforderungen wirklich aller Alt-Text-Polizisten erfülle. Daß idealerweise die Bildposts, die ich heute schreibe, auch noch die Anforderungen erfüllen werden, die die Alt-Text-Polizisten in fünf Jahren haben werden, wenn sie ihre Mindestanforderungen noch weiter nach oben geschraubt haben.

Die einzige Anforderung, die ich meistens nicht erfüllen kann, ist, alle Texte im Bild im Alt-Text zu transkribieren. Wenn ich Texte habe, sind die meistens so zahlreich, daß ich nicht alle Transkripte in 1.500 Zeichen untergebracht bekomme, schon gar nicht mit den notwendigen begleitenden visuellen Beschreibungen. Daher weisen meine Alt-Texte auf die Langbeschreibungen hin und darauf, daß alle Texte im Bild in der Langbeschreibung transkribiert sind. Aber ich rechne damit, daß das schon heute nicht mehr ausreichend ist und eigentlich sanktioniert gehört und ich nur deshalb damit davonkomme, weil die Reichweite meiner Bildposts so minimal ist.

CC: @bommel

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #Bildbeschreibung #Bildbeschreibungen #BildbeschreibungenMeta #CWBildbeschreibungenMeta #AltTextPolizei #Barrierefreiheit #Inklusion #Ableismus #AbleismusMeta
2026-02-15
@Oblomov I'm on both Hubzilla and (streams), and actually browsing through a whole server of anything is not possible here.

The best we have is a directory, somewhat similar to that on Mastodon, but also somewhat more powerful in certain aspects. Even there, Hubzilla only lists channels that can speak its native Zot6 protocol, i.e. Hubzilla and (streams) channels. It doesn't list any ActivityPub actors because ActivityPub is provided by an add-on, optional and off by default.

(streams) has ActivityPub support integrated into its core, and its native Nomad protocol is better at working together with non-nomadic ActivityPub things than Zot6, so ActivityPub is on by default. Thus, its directory also lists ActivityPub-based actors.

You can filter the directory only in three ways. One shows only local channels. One shows only safe channels, i.e. such that aren't flagged NSFW. And one only shows group actors. This one is interesting because it shows you all kinds of these as far as they're known to your server: Friendica groups, Hubzilla forums, (streams) groups, Forte groups if there were any, Lemmy communities, Mbin magazines, PieFed communities, nodeBB forum categories, Flipboard magazines...

That said, filtering by string is not possible so you can't single out actors on a certain server. However, in suggestion mode, the results are weighted by how well their profiles match yours and by how many of your contacts are connected to them, somewhat reminiscent of Facebook.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams)
2026-02-14
@bommel Ja.

Ich will meine Bilder nicht irgendwie beschreiben, sondern so gut wie möglich.

Außerdem: Die Anforderungen an Alt-Texte und Bildbeschreibungen im Fediverse steigen stetig.

Erst ging es nur gegen fehlende Alt-Texte. Dann gegen Dateinamen, "image", Kopien des Post-Textes und andere völlig nutzlose Alt-Texte. Dann gegen viel zu kurze Beschreibungen. Gegen Texte im Bild, die nicht 1:1 Wort für Wort transkribiert worden sind. Gegen komplett halluzinierte KI-Beschreibungen. Gegen grundsätzlich richtige KI-Beschreibungen, die aber immer noch Fehler enthalten. Einen Alt-Text zu schreiben, der nicht 100% akkurat und hinreichend detailliert ist, ist heutzutage schon riskant.

Ich will das alles jederzeit perfekt erfüllen. Nein, ich will diesen Anforderungen sogar noch voraus sein, denn sie werden weiter steigen. Und bisher hat sich noch niemand beschwert über zu lange Alt-Texte. Oder Doppelbeschreibungen, eine im Alt-Text, eine im Post. Zum Glück auch noch nicht, wenn Texte in einer Bildbeschreibung im Post transkribiert sind, aber nicht in der im Alt-Text.

Wenn mich jemand kritisieren würde, weil eine meiner Bildbeschreibungen inakkurat oder nicht detailliert genug ist, dann würde ich nicht sagen: "Ach, andere haben sich bestimmt darüber gefreut." Dann würde ich vielmehr sagen: "Das hätte ich auch besser machen können. Nächstes Mal mache ich es besser."

Ich bin jemand, der jedes Mal, wenn er etwas Neues über Bildbeschreibungen lernt, seine bisherigen Bildbeschreibungen für veraltet erklärt. Ich habe Bildposts mit Bildbeschreibungen, in die ich Stunden oder Tage investiert habe. Die zeige ich aber ungern vor, weil die Bildbeschreibungen einfach meinen heutigen Standards nicht mehr genügen.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #Bildbeschreibung #Bildbeschreibungen #BildbeschreibungenMeta #CWBildbeschreibungenMeta
2026-02-14
@bommel
Nein, du *musst* es nicht wissen.

Und auf welcher Grundlage soll ich dann meine Bilder beschreiben?

Einfach irgendwie und dann hoffen, daß ich dafür nicht von jemandem auf den Deckel kriege, und sei es hinter meinem Rücken?

In deinen Aussagen steckt ja auch die Grundannahme, dass es ein "richtig" gibt - auch diese ist falsch, denn Menschen sind verschieden und bevorzugen unterschiedliche Dinge und Herangehensweisen.

Das heißt, ich könnte auch völligen Unfug schreiben, und das wäre okay?

Übrigens habe ich selbst schon mehrfach gesehen, wie Fediverse-Nutzer für nutzlose Alt-Texte gemaßregelt wurden.

Ich kann nur soviel sagen: Auch du wirst nur so lange darauf beharren, daß es ein "richtig" bei Bildbeschreibungen nicht gibt, bis du genügend kompletten Müll in Alt-Texten gesehen hast. Oder bis du für einen Alt-Text, den du für absolut angemessen hältst, von Mastodons Alt-Text-Polizei auf den Deckel bekommst. Die ist dir nämlich schon ein ganzes Stück voraus.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #Bildbeschreibung #Bildbeschreibungen #BildbeschreibungenMeta #CWBildbeschreibungenMeta #AltTextPolizei

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