Are you referring to my mentions being @Erik :heart_agender: and @Roknrol rather than what you're used to, namely @⁠bright_helpings and @⁠roknrol? Using the long name rather than the short name and keeping the @ outside the link rather than making it part of the link? Likewise, the # being outside the hashtag link rather than being part of it?

This is because I'm not on Mastodon. The Fediverse is not only Mastodon. It has never been. So this is not a toot.

No, really. This is what I post from: https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/channel/jupiter_rowland, https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/profile/jupiter_rowland. I ask you: Does this look like Mastodon? Have you ever seen Mastodon look like this?

Where I am, this style of mentions and hashtags is hard-coded. And it has been since long before Mastodon was even an idea.

I'm on something named Hubzilla. Hubzilla is not a Mastodon instance. Hubzilla is not a Mastodon fork either. Hubzilla has got absolutely nothing to do with Mastodon at all.

It is its very own project, fully independent from Mastodon (https://hubzilla.org, https://framagit.org/hubzilla, https://joinfediverse.wiki/Hubzilla).

Hubzilla has not intruded into "the Mastodon Fediverse" either. The Fediverse is older than Mastodon. And Hubzilla was there before Mastodon.

Hubzilla was launched by @Mike Macgirvin ?️ in March, 2015, eight months before Mastodon, by renaming and redesigning his own Red Matrix from 2012, almost four years before Mastodon. And the Red Matrix was a fork of a fork of his own Friendica, which was launched on July 2nd, 2010, 15 years ago, five and a half years before Mastodon. (https://en.wikipedia.org/Friendica, https://friendi.ca, https://github.com/friendica, https://joinfediverse.wiki/Friendica)

Friendica was there before Mastodon, too.

Here's the official Friendica/Hubzilla timeline on Hubzilla's official website to show you that I'm not making anything up: https://hubzilla.org/page/info/timeline. Scroll all the way down and notice all the features that you may right now know for a fact that the Fediverse doesn't have, but that Friendica has introduced to the Fediverse 15 years ago, five and a half years before Mastodon was launched.

Again, Mastodon has never been its own network. The Fediverse has never been only Mastodon. When Mastodon was launched in January, 2016, it immediately federated with

• GNU social, the successor to @Evan Prodromou's StatusNet from 2008 (the actual start of the Fediverse, eight years older than Mastodon)
• @Mike Macgirvin ?️'s Friendica, now maintained by @Tobias and @Michael
• @Mike Macgirvin ?️'s Hubzilla

Friendica has been formatting mentions and hashtags the way I just did for 15 years now. When Mastodon was launched, Friendica has been formatting them that way for five and a half years already, and Hubzilla has done so for ten months. It is hard-coded there. It is not a user option.

That's because not everything in the Fediverse is a Twitter clone or Twitter alternative. [b]Friendica was designed as a Facebook alternative with full-blown long-form blogging capability. And Hubzilla adds even more stuff to this. This is why Friendica and Hubzilla don't mimic Twitter.

Another shocking fact: As you can clearly see here, Friendica and Hubzilla don't have Mastodon's 500-character limit. Friendica's character limit is 200,000. Hubzilla's character limit is 16,777,215, the maximum length of the database field. And it's deeply engrained in their culture, which is many years older than Mastodon's culture, to not worry about the length of a post exceeding 500 characters.

One more shocking fact: Friendica has had quote-posts since its very beginning. So has Hubzilla. Both have always been able to quote-post any public Mastodon toot, and they will forever remain able to quote-post any public Mastodon toot. And Mastodon will never be able to do anything against it. (By the way: In 15 years of Friendica, nobody has ever used quote-posts for dogpiling or harassment purposes. Neither Friendica nor Hubzilla is Twitter.)

You find this disturbing? You think none of this should exist in the Fediverse, even though all this has been in the Fediverse for longer than Mastodon?

Then go ahead and block all instances of Friendica and Hubzilla as well as all instances of Mike's later creations, (streams) (https://codeberg.org/streams/streams) from 2021 and Forte (https://codeberg.org/fortified/forte) from 2024.

• https://friendica.fediverse.observer/list
• https://fedidb.com/software/friendica
• https://rumbly.net/communities?project=friendica
• https://nomad.fedi-verse.hu/communities?project=friendica
• https://streams.elsmussols.net/communities?project=friendica
• https://hubzilla.fediverse.observer/list
• https://fedidb.com/software/hubzilla
• https://rumbly.net/communities?project=hubzilla
• https://nomad.fedi-verse.hu/communities?project=hubzilla
• https://streams.elsmussols.net/communities?project=hubzilla
• https://rumbly.net/communities?type=streams_repository
• https://nomad.fedi-verse.hu/communities?type=streams_repository
• https://streams.elsmussols.net/communities?type=streams_repository
• https://rumbly.net/communities?project=forte
• https://nomad.fedi-verse.hu/communities?project=forte
• https://streams.elsmussols.net/communities?project=forte

Or you could go ask @Seirdy / DM me the word "bread" and @Garden Fence Blocklist as well as @Mad Villain of @The Bad Space to add every last instance on any of these lists to their blocklists for being "rampantly and unabashedly ableist and xenophobic by design" due to not being and acting and working like Mastodon and just as rampantly and unabashedly refusing to fully adopt and adapt to the Mastodon-centric "Fediverse culture" as defined by fresh Twitter refugees on Mastodon in mid-2022 as well as refusing to abandon their own culture which is disturbingly incompatible with Mastodon's. Essentially try and have four entire Fediverse server applications Fediblocked once and for all because they're so disturbing from a "Fediverse equals Mastodon" point of view.

Or you could go to Mastodon's GitHub repository (https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon), submit a feature request for defederating Mastodon from everything that isn't Mastodon by design and then go lobbying for support for your feature request.

As for why I have so many hashtags below my comments, here is what they mean. Many of them are meant to trigger filters, including such that automatically hide posts behind content warning buttons, a feature that Mastodon has had since October, 2022, that Friendica has had since July, 2010, and that Hubzilla has had since March, 2015.

• #Long, #LongPost = This post is over 500 characters long. Create a filter for either or both of these hashtags if you don't want to see my or anyone else's long posts.
• #CWLong, #CWLongPost = CW: long post (over 500 characters long). Create a filter for either or both of these hashtags if you don't want to see my or anyone else's long posts.
• #FediMeta, #FediverseMeta = This post talks about the Fediverse. Create a filter for either or both of these hashtags if you don't want to see me or anyone talk about the Fediverse.
• #CWFediMeta, #CWFediverseMeta = CW: Fediverse meta. Or: CW: Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta. Or: CW: Fediverse meta, non-Mastodon Fediverse meta. Create a filter for either or both of these hashtags if you don't want to see me or anyone talk about the Fediverse.
• #NotOnlyMastodon, #FediverseIsNotMastodon, #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse: This post talks about the Fediverse not only being Mastodon. Create a filter for either or multiple or all of these hashtags if you don't want to see me or anyone else talk about the Fediverse being more than Mastodon. Otherwise, click or tap any of these hashtags to read more about it in your Fediverse app.
• #Friendica: This post talks about the Facebook alternative in the Fediverse named Friendica. Create a filter for it if you don't want to see me or anyone else talk about Friendica. Otherwise, click or tap it to read more about it in your Fediverse app. It is also meant for post discovery.
• #Hubzilla: This post talks about the Swiss army knif of the Fediverse named Hubzilla. Create a filter for it if you don't want to see me or anyone else talk about Hubzilla. Otherwise, click or tap it to read more about it in your Fediverse app. It is also meant for post discovery.
• #Streams, #(streams): This post talks about the Facebook alternative in the Fediverse commonly referred to as (streams). Create a filter for either or both of them if you don't want to see me or anyone else talk about Friendica. Otherwise, click or tap either of them to read more about it in your Fediverse app. It is also meant for post discovery.
• #Forte: This post talks about the Facebook alternative in the Fediverse named Forte. Create a filter for it if you don't want to see me or anyone else talk about Forte. Otherwise, click or tap it to read more about it in your Fediverse app. It is also meant for post discovery.
• #AltText = This post talks about alt-text and/or contains an image with alt-text. It is primarily meant for post discovery.
• #AltTextMeta = This post talks about alt-text. Create a filter for this hashtag if you don't want to see me or anyone else talk about alt-text.
• #CWAltTextMeta = CW: alt-text meta. Create a filter for this hashtag if you don't want to see me or anyone else talk about alt-text.
• #ImageDescription = This post talks about image descriptions and/or contains an image with an image description. It is primarily meant for post discovery.
• #ImageDescriptions, #ImageDescriptionMeta = This post talks about image descriptions. Create a filter for either of these hashtags if you don't want to see me or anyone else talk about image descriptions.
• #CWImageDescriptionMeta = CW: image description meta. Create a filter for this hashtag if you don't want to see me or anyone else talk about image descriptions.
• #Hashtag, #Hashtags, #HashtagMeta = This post talks about hashtags. Create a filter for either of these hashtags if you don't want to see me or anyone else talk about hashtags.
• #CWHashtagMeta = CW: hashtag meta. Create a filter for this hashtag if you don't want to see me or anyone else talk about hashtags.
• #CharacterLimit, #CharacterLimits = This post is talking about character limits. It is primarily meant for post discovery. But if you don't want to see me or anyone else talk about character limits, create a filter for any of these hashtags.
• #QuotePost, #QuoteTweet, #QuoteToot, #QuoteBoost = This post talks about quote-posts and/or contains a quote-post. If this disturbs you, create a filter for any of these hashtags.
• #QuotePosts, #QuoteTweets, #QuoteToots, #QuoteBoosts, #QuotedShares = This post talks about quote-posts. Create a filter for either of these hashtags if you don't want to see me or anyone else talk about quote-posts.
• #QuotePostDebate, #QuoteTootDebate = This post talks about quote-posts. Create a filter for either of these hashtags if you don't want to see me or anyone else talk about quote-posts.
• #FediblockMeta = This post is talking about fediblocks. It is primarily meant for post discovery.

Lastly: Having all hashtags in one line at the very end of a post that only contains hashtags is the preferred way in the Fediverse. For one, hashtags in their own line at the end of the post irritate screen reader users much less than hashtags in the middle of the text. It's actually hashtags in the middle of the text that are ableist. Besides, Mastodon is explicitly designed to have a separate hashtag line at the end of the post.

@Furbland's Very Cool Mastodon™

but more detail can’t hurt.

I think we aren't thinking in the same dimensions.

How about 1,500 characters of alt-text for each image, 900 of which are image description, plus over 20,000 characters of description, explanations and transcripts for two images in the post itself?

How about 1,500 characters of alt-text, 1,400 of which are image description, plus over 60,000 characters of description, explanations and transcripts in the post itself?

In case you're on a phone: If the above looks like links, that's because it is links. The links lead to two of my image posts which, while not originally on Mastodon, are still in the Fediverse, and copies of both can actually be found on mastodon.social. The first one can be found under the hashtag #OSG17B; it's the third one (or fourth, counting this one) from the top. The second one can be found under the hashtag #UniversalCampus; it's the one at the bottom.

I just wrote this page because there was no documentation on it really,

Oh, there's plenty of documentation on alt-text and image descriptions. For example:

• https://www.accessible-social.com/images-and-visuals/writing-image-descriptions
• https://www.cooperhewitt.org/cooper-hewitt-guidelines-for-image-description/
• https://veroniiiica.com/media-accessibility/alt-text/ (this has loads of pages about alt-text and image descriptions, and the author is visually impaired herself)
• https://www.sandstormdesign.com/blog/website-accessibility-101-5-best-practices-writing-alt-text-images
• https://www.uml.edu/brand-communications-creative-strategy/resources-guidelines/web-accessibility/image-accessibility.aspx
• https://www.nngroup.com/articles/write-alt-text/
• https://www.continualengine.com/blog/alt-text-on-images/
• https://www.tpgi.com/short-note-on-coding-alt-text/

Beware, though: They may contradict each other.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta

@David Mitchell :CApride:

Mostly, just imagine you’re telling your friend over the phone about image you’re looking at and what they would need to know.

Let's just say I'm a bit critical about that because, in my opinion, it doesn't work in the Fediverse.

Jupiter Rowland schrieb den folgenden Beitrag Fri, 04 Oct 2024 23:30:02 +0200

You can't describe images in Fediverse posts like over the phone

Allegedly, a "good" advice for image descriptions is always to describe images like you'd describe them to someone on a landline phone.

Sorry, but that's non-sense. At least for anything that goes significantly beyond a real-life cat photo.

If you describe an image through a phone, you describe it to one person. Usually a person whom you know, so you've at least got a rough idea on what they need described. Even more importantly, you can ask that person what they want to know about the image if you don't know. And you get a reply.

If you describe an image for a public Fediverse post, you describe it to millions of Fediverse users and billions of Web users. You can't know what they all want, nor can you generalise what they all want. And you can't even ask one of them what they need described before or while describing, much less all of them. In fact, you can't ask at all. And yet, you have to cater to everyone's needs the same and throw no-one under a bus.

If I see a realistic chance that someone might be interested in some detail in one of my images, I will describe it. It won't be in the shorter description in the alt-text; instead, it will be in the long description which I've always put directly into the post so far, but whose placement I'm currently reconsidering. If something is unfamiliar enough to enough people that it requires an explanation, I will explain it in the long description.

Right now, only meme posts are an exception. They don't need as much of a visual description as long as I stick to the template, and a poll has revealed that people do prefer externally linked third-party explanations over my own ones blowing the character count of the post out of proportion. This is the one time that I can safely assume that I actually know what most people want.

@accessibility group @a11y group

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Inclusion #A11y #Accessibility

CC: @Monstreline @Claire (sometimes Carla) @qurly(not curly)joe

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #QuotePost #QuoteTweet #QuoteToot #QuoteBoost

@Michal Bryxí And since you obviously haven't actually read anything I've linked to, here's a quote-post of my comment in which I dissect the first AI description.

Jupiter Rowland wrote the following post Tue, 05 Mar 2024 20:28:12 +0100 (This is actually a comment. Find another post further up in this thread.)

Now let's pry LLaVA's image description apart, shall we?

The image appears to be a 3D rendering or a screenshot from a video game or a virtual environment.

Typical for an AI: It starts vague. That's because it isn't really sure what it's looking at.

This is not a video game. It's a 3-D virtual world.

At least, LLaVA didn't take this for a real-life photograph.

It shows a character

It's an avatar, not a character.

standing on a paved path with a brick-like texture.

This is the first time that the AI is accurate without being vague. However, there could be more details to this.

The character is facing away from the viewer,

And I can and do tell the audience in my own image description why my avatar is facing away from the viewer. Oh, and that it's the avatar of the creator of this picture, namely myself.

looking towards a sign or information board on the right side of the image.

Nope. Like the AI could see the eyeballs of my avatar from behind. The avatar is actually looking at the cliff in the background.

Also, it's clearly an advertising board.

The environment is forested with tall trees and a dense canopy, suggesting a natural, possibly park-like setting.

If I'm generous, I can let this pass as not exactly wrong. Only that there is no dense canopy, and this is not a park.

The lighting is subdued, with shadows cast by the trees, indicating either early morning or late afternoon.

Nope again. It's actually late morning. The AI doesn't know because it can't tell that the Sun is in the southeast, and because it has got no idea how tall the trees actually are, what with almost all treetops and half the shadow cast by the avatar being out of frame.

The overall atmosphere is calm and serene.

In a setting inspired by thrillers from the 1950s and 1960s. You're adorable, LLaVA. Then again, it was quiet because there was no other avatar present.

There's a whole lot in this image that LLaVA didn't mention at all. First of all, the most blatant shortcomings.

First of all, the colours. Or the lack of them. LLaVA doesn't say with a single world that everything is monochrome. What it's even less aware of is that the motive itself is monochrome, i.e. this whole virtual place is actually monochrome, and the avatar is monochrome, too.

Next, what does my avatar look like? Gender? Skin? Hair? Clothes?

Then there's that thing on the right. LLaVA doesn't even mention that this thing is there.

It doesn't mention the sign to the left, it doesn't mention the cliff at the end of the path, it doesn't mention the mountains in the background, and it's unaware of both the bit of sky near the top edge and the large building hidden behind the trees.

And it does not transcribe even one single bit of text in this image.

And now for what I think should really be in the description, but what no AI will ever be able to describe from looking at an image like this one.

A good image description should mention where an image was taken. AIs can currently only tell that when they're fed famous landmarks. AI won't be able to tell from looking at this image that it was taken at the central crossroads at Black White Castle, a sim in the OpenSim-based Pangea Grid anytime soon. And I'm not even talking about explaining OpenSim, grids and all that to people who don't know what it is.

Speaking of which, the object to the right. LLaVA completely ignores it. However, it should be able to not only correctly identify it as an OpenSimWorld beacon, but also describe what it looks like and explain to the reader what an OpenSimWorld beacon is, what OpenSimWorld is etc. because it should know that this can not be expected to be common knowledge. My own description does that in round about 5,000 characters.

And LLaVA should transcribe what's written on the touch screen which it should correctly identify as a touch screen. It should also mention the sign on the left and transcribe what's written on it.

In fact, all text anywhere within the borders of the picture should be transcribed 100% verbatim. Since there's no rule against transcribing text that's so small that it's illegible or that's so tiny that it's practically invisible or that's partially obscured or partially out of frame, a good AI should be capable of transcribing such text 100% verbatim in its entirety as well. Unless text is too small for me to read in-world, I can and do that.

And how about not only knowing that the advertising board is an advertising board, but also mentioning and describing what's on it? Technically speaking, there's actually a lot of text on that board, and in order to transcribe it, its context needs to be described. That is, I must admit I was sloppy myself and omitted a whole lot of transcriptions in my own description.

Still, AI has a very very long way to go. And it will never fully get there.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #AltText #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AI #LLaVA

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #VirtualWorlds #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImagDescriptionMeta #LLaVA #AI #AIVsHuman #HumanVsAI

@Michal Bryxí

Without any context

The context matters. A whole lot.

A simple real-life cat photograph can be described in a few hundred characters, and everyone knows what it's all about. It doesn't need much visual description because it's mainly only the cat that matters. Just about everyone knows what real-life cats generally look like, except from the ways they differ from one another. Even people born 100% blind should have a rough enough idea what a cat is and what it looks like from a) being told it if they inquire and b) touching and petting a few cats.

Thus, most elements of a real-life cat photograph can safely be assumed to be common knowledge. They don't require description, and they don't require explanation because everyone should know what a cat is.

Now, let's take the image which LLaVA has described in 558 characters, and which I've previously described in 25,271 characters.

For one, it doesn't focus on anything. It shows an entire scene. If the visual description has to include what's important, it has to include everything in the image because everything in the image is important just the same.

Besides, it's a picture from a 3-D virtual world. Not from the real world. People don't know anything about this kind of 3-D virtual worlds in general, and they don't know anything about this place in particular. In this picture, nothing can safely be assumed to be common knowledge. For blind or visually-impaired users even less.

People may want to know where this image was made. AI won't be able to figure that out. AI can't examine that picture and immediately and with absolute certainty recognise that it was created on a sim called Black-White Castle on an OpenSim grid named Pangea Grid, especially seeing as that place was only a few days old when I was there. LLaVA wasn't even sure if it's a video game or a virtual world. So AI won't be able to tell people.

AI doesn't know either whether or not any of the location information can be considered common knowledge and therefore necessarily to explain so humans will understand it.

I, the human describer, on the other hand, can tell people where exactly this image was made. And I can explain it to them in such a way that they'll understand it with zero prior knowledge about the matter.

Next point: text transcripts. LLaVA didn't even notice that there is text in the image, much less transcribe it. Not transcribing every bit of text in an image is sloppy; not transcribing any text in an image is ableist.

No other AI will even be able to transcribe the text in this image, however. That's because no AI can read any of it. It's all too small and, on top of that, too low-contrast for reliable OCR. All that AI has is the image I've posted at a resolution of 800x533 pixels.

I myself can see the scenery at nigh-infinite resolution by going there. No AI can do that, and no LLM AI will ever be able to do that. And so I can read and transcribe all text in the image 100% verbatim with 100% accuracy.

However, text transcripts require some room in the description, also because they additionally require descriptions of where the text is.

I win again. And so does the long, detailed description.

Would you rather have alt text that is:

I'm not sure if this is typical Mastodon behaviour because it's impossible for Mastodon users to imagine that images can be described elsewhere than in the alt-text (they can, and I have), or if it's intentional trolling.

The 25,271 characters did not go into the alt-text! They went into the post.

I can put so many characters into a post. I'm not on Mastodon. I'm on Hubzilla which has never had and still doesn't have any character limits.

In the alt-text, there's a separate, shorter, still self-researched and hand-written image description to satisfy those who absolutely demand there be an image description in the alt-text.

25,271 characters in alt-text would cause Mastodon to cut 23,771 characters off and throw them away.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #VirtualWorlds #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImagDescriptionMeta #LLaVA #AI #AIVsHuman #HumanVsAI