None of those many alt-text guides is useful for the Fediverse outside of Mastodon; CW: long post (3,550 characters), non-Mastodon Fediverse
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There are three sorts of alt-text/image description guides on the Internet. None of them is really that useful for the Fediverse outside of Mastodon.
The first sort is the most common one. It explains how to graft alt-text into HTML code and either how that's useful for SEO or not to use alt-text for SEO.
However, this is not applicable to social media at all. Maybe except for (streams) which is the only Fediverse project that allows HTML in posts, but probably not even there. And it implies an unlimited amount of characters around the posted image. Bonus points if the guide is so old and outdated that it still recommends longdesc for anything over 150 characters.
The second sort is about how to add alt-text to pictures on social media.
However, "social media" refers exclusively to the tradition commercial walled-garden platforms owned by Silicon Valley corporations. Twitter/𝕏, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.
The third sort is very rare already. It might explicitly about Mastodon. But it might just as well say it's about "Mastodon and the Fediverse".
However, even "Mastodon and the Fediverse" almost always only means Mastodon. And in this case, it
actually only means Mastodon. It might mention that "the Fediverse" is so great because you can put the absolutely incredulous amount of 1,500 characters into alt-text, but only 500 into a post. And it provides step-by-step instructions on how to add an alt-text on Mastodon's default Web interface.
Not only does it lack any instructions for alternate Web interfaces and
any mobile app, but it also completely ignores
everything that isn't vanilla Mastodon. I'm not only talking about step-by-step instructions for other Fediverse projects.
No, a good guide with "Fediverse" in the title would mention that
absolutely everything that isn't vanilla Mastodon offers more characters in the post than Mastodon offers in the alt-text. And while it might be tempting to shove a detailed, over-1000-characters image description into the alt-text on Mastodon because you don't have any other choice, doing that makes absolutely no sense literally anywhere else in the Fediverse.
A good guide with "Fediverse" in the title would do as the first sort of alt-text guide does: explain that information that isn't available anywhere else in the post, not in the post text and not in the image itself either, does
not belong into the alt-text. Not only is long alt-text hard to navigate with a screen reader, but there are people who can't access alt-text, and be it due to a physical disability. Anything written only in alt-text is lost to them.
But if you're anywhere that isn't Mastodon, there is no reason for you to put such stuff into the alt-text. At least not Mastodon's reason which is its utter lack of character capacity in toots. Everything else does not have that lack in the first place.
Misskey offers you 3,000 characters in posts. That's twice as much as in Mastodon's or Misskey's own alt-text, and that's a whopping six times as much as in Mastodon's toots. Firefish offers you from 3,000 characters upward. Pleroma and Akkoma offer you from 5,000 characters upward. Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) do not even have any character limits by default.
A good guide would know that and tell you that.
But such guides don't exist.
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