I am frequently on Piefed (Lemmy) and occasionally on Mastodon and I noticed they use ALT tags for images way more on Mastodon than we do here.

Anyone know why this is? it is more about the software or the culture or maybe just historical?

It seems like a good idea to always set the ALT tag for an image post on both services, and I’ve seen many ppl on the other site say they won’t boost (share) any image posts without ALT tags (since vision-impaired people really benefit from them).

Just curious…

  • perishthethought@piefed.socialOPEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    I access piefed via web browser and no, there’s no way I can find to see your alt text.

    The impression I get from these comments is that this issue is really both about the software (Devs don’t prioritize alt text much) and cultural (users don’t either). Which came first and led to the other? Who knows…

      • forestbeasts@pawb.social
        2·
        1 day ago

        What masto does is it adds it both to “alt” and to “title”. “title” makes it show up in a tooltip, “alt” is for screenreaders and whatnot.

        • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
          2·
          1 day ago

          I forgot how to add title/hover text on an inline image… let me test:

          a magpie against a brick wall. This is the alt text.

          Ok I remember now. You have to add a space then double quotation marks after your URL, within the parentheses. This image has both alt text and title text. I’m not going to do both on the regular.

          • forestbeasts@pawb.social
            2·
            1 day ago

            Oh nice! That works on our end! (lemmy web)

            The software should just do that for you by default, IMO. No extra effort.

            – Frost