[189/366] maybe a little head shake

[cosmolinguist]

I inadvertently ended up being in the middle of some Mastodon Discourse this evening.

Mastodon is a funny place because it has a strong culture of describing images (something the web UI and apps tend to make easier than it is on Twitter or Facebook). But also, the culture's one of people getting it a bit wrong. There's an assumption that only blind people benefit from them (when it's a real Curb Cut Effect illustration because it also helps people who didn't get the reference in a joke, who have slow connections or where images aren't loading as sometimes happens, and so on), that all and only blind people use screenreaders, and that anyone who posts an image without a description is a lazy asshole (when in reality other kinds of impairments or disabilities can make it difficult or impossible to write image descriptions).

It was this last ideology that caused the problem tonight: a longstanding mutual follower of nine said social networks should be hostile to anyone who posts undescribed images. I said "I don't think they should be blocked entirely because there are people who can't describe their images because of their own disabilities. Access needs can clash and some people who don't describe their images are worth following, especially for establishing disabled community." I also said "And there are other ways to mitigate the problem, like CWing that the image isn't described or just flagging it up and asking if others can do a description...all of which fosters good culture too." I'd seen people do both those things (CWs on Mastodon work like cut-tags here, so if an image URL (or something like emoji spam or ASCII art) is posted behind one, screenreader users don't have to listen to a bunch of garbage, they have the choice to avoid that).

This person told me there's no way to add a description for someone else's image and I thought, sure, not in the original alt-text space but there's also a culture on Mastodon of replying to undescribed images with descriptions for them. People like me, who won't boost (masto for "retweet") images without descriptions can then share both; I've done that a bunch of times because I like some other users have a policy of not boosting undescribed images. So I said "They can add a reply. I always look for replies to images I don't understand (or want to boost, because I won't if there isn't a description). I don't think the image description has to be in the alt-text field specifically; requiring that would just breed resentment and immediately lead to people putting empty spaces or keysmashes in the image description field, or writing stuff hostile to the concept of image descriptions or people who use them."

I ended that with "It doesn't benefit from coercion"; I feel really strongly that abled people look for technological solutions to the exclusion of all else and to the detriment of disabled people whose problems the unaffected claim they're interested in solving. Look at the problem of people who lip-read now that face masks are required for safety: every time this (or even just deaf people in pandemic times) are brought up online, there will be a million comments saying "clear face masks are a thing!" This happened on my BBC news video, because it also featured a deaf person. It happened on Mastodon a while ago, where I got tagged in someone's well-meaning question about what people with no sensory impairments could do to help those of us who do have them.

People aren't understanding that "I read an article that says clear masks exist!" is a long way from good access for lip-readers: are the masks actually available to people who need them? are they produced in sufficient quantity? who's paying for them? how much? And even if a lip-reader had a free bag of them magically appear in her hands, she'd have to convince everyone who she needed to speak to, to wear one. If you're a random supermarket worker or clinician or receptionist or whatever, out doing your job, are you just going to take a random mask from a random person and swap it for the mask you were already wearing? How safe is that? How liable will your company be if someone gets sick and blames this? "Clear masks exist!" answers only the first one of a billion questions that abled people don't even imagine.

And I'm not asking them all to be able to answer all those questions, but I wish more people knew that they existed. I wish I didn't have to point out to someone that making image description fields mandatory on any social network is going to lead to abuse, both intentional and not, before you can even say "shitpost." But since I did have to point that out, I tried to do so as constructively as possible.

I...was not successful, to say the least. This person's next reply said "adding a reply is such an extremely shitty non-solution. you probably shouldn't be spreading that misinformation if you actually think accessibility is important (which i assume you're being sincere about)."

Having my opinions as someone who relies on image descriptions called misinformation took me aback even more than having the sincerity of my interest in accessibility challenged. My profile says I'm partially sighted and it's something I talk about from time to time, and I wasn't a random stranger to this person. I had a kinda vague idea who they were and if they didn't have that much an idea about me I'd expect they'd have refreshed their memory with a peek at my profile by this point, which includes a pinned toot that starts "I know image descriptions aren't possible for everyone and I respect that access-needs clash (all disabled people are familiar with this phenomenon). But I also know a lot more people can describe their images than are currently doing so" and then goes on to suggest a big list of things people should remember to describe.

But since they didn't seem to have checked, I told them in my next reply "I'm partially sighted. I rely on image descriptions all the time. I'm fine with them being in replies, I'm fine with people warning me when stuff isn't "screenreader friendly." I'm not fine with my own evaluations of what I find useful or helpful being called misinformation." I went on to say "Like sure there are ways for the technology to make it easier or more normal to describe images but culture is always more important to me than technological solutions because it's more robust and transferable."

I make a lot of people unhappy with this talk of culture when they think an app or whatever can fix all problems. But I didn't expect it to make anybody this mad.

Their next reply was "please get the fuck out of my mentions and stay out."

So...I have. I was taken aback for a second, but the impulse to try to explain or apologize faded really quickly, like in seconds, which I'm relieved about. That's definitely something I used to find it difficult or impossible to avoid, and if I've learned anything from my marginalized friends on the internet, it's leave someone the hell alone when they tell you to.

I wrote my own little thread instead:

I appreciate sighted fediverse users concern about image descriptions and ways to be "screenreader friendly." Mostly I agree with you, maybe with quibbles but they're not worth trying to nitpick and I'm aware I'm not the sole authority, just one visually impaired person. But sometimes you all end up talking to each other and I worry that some of the advice that makes me wince is getting solidified into prescriptivism. Please make sure visually impaired people are part of these conversations.

If you don't know any other visually impaired fedinauts, feel free to tag me in! I love conversations like this and I'm usually happy to give this labor away for free. If you do know other ones, make sure you ask first if they're willing to be consulted! Because it can be a real pain in the ass and people don't always like being the ambassador for their marginalization. But it happens to be one of my Special Interests, so you can't say you don't have anyone to check with when this comes up.

People have asked for examples of the kinds of things that are being taken as gospel and aren't necessarily helpful. Which is great, I'm so glad for the interest! I'm coming up with a little list, but it might take a bit; this is not how I expected my evening to go! If other blind fedinauts have noticed anything similar, do get in touch! Visual impairment has some of the most wide-ranging access needs, people can need literally contradictory things and I both can't and won't speak for everyone. Not everything I say is gospel either.

All of that has gotten a lot of attention (for masto; it's a much smaller scale than twitter), lots of replies and friend requests from strangers, and a lot of kindness from friends, many of whom saw this play out on their timeline because me and this person had a lot of friends in common.

As soon as I'd recoiled from my urge to reply to someone who just told me to get out of their mentions, I combed over everything I'd said in a panic that I'd done something to provoke it but I couldn't find anything and the responses from friends who I think would tell me if I was out of line were universally supportive.

A nice conversation sprung up with a potential solution for how people who struggle to describe their images could indicate this and ask for help with it, maybe by use of a custom emoji (masto loves custom emojis; each instance has their own but a few have become common across instances as like meta-commentary, such as "please boost this" or "don't @ me about this"). I've reminded people there's a bot you can follow that'll flag up if you post an image without a description, I'm gonna collate some more advice about how to write them. I'll ask if there are any volunteers to design that emoji.

It's been a busy evening! Ironically one of my eye conditions, the nystagmus, is worsened by stress and it was so bad before I mistook it for a migraine aura at first. I'm not stressed because anything bad happened to me, luckily -- the consensus seems to be that this was a shocking escalation from the other person and it was inappropriate to tell somebody off for adding a bit of nuance when they're in a group you're purporting to help -- but it still took an amount of my brain's bandwidth that I really hadn't budgeted for when I was just chilling out in front of the TV. By the time I got around to making dinner, I dropped the jar of tahini (plastic, luckily! my kitchen floor has had its kill for the week already!) and it spilled everywhere. But otherwise, no harm seems to have been done. It's just a surreal thing to have happen.

Maybe my favorite thing about this, early on, was a reply from a friend that said "Every time I post an image, I imagine this slightly disappointed look on your face, maybe a little head shake, if I don't write a half-way decent description. It's very effective." With the caveat that I'm not disappointed in everyone who doesn't describe their images, I told her this was absolutely delighted to be the imaginary person doing this.

Comments

[jenett]

denise did a presentation a while back (2013) with some ideas on alt-text writing for different purposes.

Initial post with images to work with (and sample text, for two different approaches to using that image and her examples

Practices and styles in description have shifted, but the "How do you get the tone like you want" is a helpful piece that isn't talked about as much as I think it should be, because I know it's a thing a lot of people stress about.

(And professionally speaking, if you're up for sharing whatever you come up with, I would love to be able to point people at it at work.)

[cosmolinguist]

Oh that's great, thank you!

Happy to share what I come up with, but I expect it to be a bunch of bullet points about things you guys will already know, like apparently I have to start with "not everyone who posts an image without describing it is the devil incarnate, can we get a bit of intersectionality in here please." :)

[jenett]

Bullet points are fine! I am delighted to document "here's examples of people talking about this in informal settings" because I think they're potentially super useful for later research, and we don't capture them enough.

Also, people don't talk about the intersectionality part nearly enough, so it usually needs saying.

[cosmolinguist]

Okay great! I'll be sure to mention it here when I get it done.

[lilysea]

like apparently I have to start with "not everyone who posts an image without describing it is the devil incarnate, can we get a bit of intersectionality in here please." :)

As someone who often can't manage image description due to

- mental exhaustion
- brain fog
- hand/wrist pain

I really appreciate you writing this! ^_^

[cosmolinguist]

One thing I said last night, in a reply to someone whose disabilities sometimes keep them from being able to describe images, was that I don't want people to think that asking for help with descriptions is a punishable offense, because I'm sick of this being a way the social network pits disabled people against each other. Almost all of us disabled people are used to clashing access needs and don't immediately think the worst of other disabled individuals who can't perfectly accommodate us all the time.

It always seems to be sighted people who get aggressive and completely lack nuance about this; this whole deal started with this former follower of mine calling people who don't describe images as lazy assholes, and they didn't appreciate being told (by someone else, not me) that laziness itself is considered an ableist concept.

I know you've shared images that don't have descriptions with me, and it's fine. You always warn me and I can almost always work around it with the magnification and OCR tools available to me. I know it isn't because you don't care or don't think this matters; those are not in fact the only reasons for a person not to describe an image! Sheesh.

[haggis]

To be cynical, I am not surprised that that person responded so badly to be asking to consider nuance.
Their go-to solution is tech-based coercion and they lacks the imagination to realise that tech solutions basically invite the sort of unhelpful/hostile responses that you mentioned.

I have been reading a bit too much "Am I The Asshole?" recently but you are clearly not the asshole in this situation.

[haggis]

An example of the curb cut effect on Mastodon - someone posted an cartoon image with sentences in Spanish and the image description had the English translation! I was debating whether the cartoon was funny enough to write the text into Google translate and there it was!

I am not perfect at remembering to post image descriptions but my average is going up, for the same reason that your friend mentioned.

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah a lot of people told them they were being out of line and the only problem they actually seemed to have with me was that they're sick of "people abusing their mentions." Which again would probably have surprised me a little even from a stranger (because I think when people talk about the functioning of the social network they are usually expecting some interest and commentary that might get outside their circle) but definitely from a mutual follower. It was only a few exchanges and they seemed as invested in the conversation as I was, not telling me to stop or go away at all until the very end.

I guess they don't even want mutuals in their mentions so...okay? I unfollowed them right away, it won't happen again.

[ljwrites]

I was shocked just reading about the exchange. Their desire not to talk to you anymore was valid of course, as is anyone's desire to cease contact, but imagine getting that level of Big Mad over perfectly reasonable input from someone in a group they're purporting to help? I guess their helpfulness only extends to the Good Blind People who agree with everything they say. What a bizarre reaction.

[silveradept]

That is certainly not the reaction you would hope someone had when being told "no, visually impaired people are not a monolith," but the replies read to me as someone being very sensitive about being corrected and choosing to offload those feelings on you rather than examine whether or not their beliefs are getting in the way of doing good actions.

I like the idea of cultural shifts being more robust than technological ones, and I suspect we have to have the cultural bits in place first before the technological bits will be effective and useful.

[cosmolinguist]

the replies read to me as someone being very sensitive about being corrected

Yes it did feel a bit like I embarrassed them when I said "I am partially sighted, this isn't abstract to me, these are my opinions from my lived experience." But, it's not like that was a trick secret I left out until the very end. My profile says I'm partially sighted, a pinned toot is about image descriptions from exactly the level of nuance I was expecting from them...I hardly thought I was springing this on a long-term mutual follower. *shrugs*


we have to have the cultural bits in place first before the technological bits will be effective and useful

This post was long enough without my rants on what a poor replacement technology makes for culture. My pet example of this is there's an app that'll connect a blind person on video chat with a sighted volunteer, when the blind person needs information from a street sign or an ingredients label or whatever. Every so often I see sighted people delighted about this as a feel-good thing for them, while for me it sounds like a nightmare of dependence on untrained, unaccountable strangers when allergens or road crossings can make such information anything up to a matter of life and death. Rather than cities or companies making their infrastructure accessible, it remains the responsibility of individual visually impaired people to work around the barriers to their access.

And when I rant about this, non-disabled people often don't understand why I'm so agitated, but it kinda proves my point about how we need the culture to change, we need people to understand that this app is a form of charity, and when the app stops being supported or your phone battery is dead or you don't have enough signal for video, you're back in this inaccessible world because it's not a robust solution.

[silveradept]

I have seen that app before, and thought it was a good idea for people who want to volunteer and people who want to use volunteers. But I can easily see how people volunteering to do a thing can be transformed into an argument that volunteers can solve the problem they're helping with and there's no need for any other effort to make things accessible. Because both you and I have probably heard enough arguments about how private, mostly religious, charity would be a perfect substitute for a state-run social safety net to last a lifetime.

[barakta]

Yes, the app gives me the creeps for similar reasons, no explanation for why there isn't a statutory or funded service which does this for blind people which is accessible to all, with vetted employees and it's just a normal part of services rather than "charidee" and "helping the poooooor blind people".

And of course, minimising the need for such things at all, as much as possible - altho I know some blind folk do prefer a human than assistive tech or whatever... Flex of choice, but a properly funded thing, not a pity or desperation thing.

[cosmolinguist]

Oh yeah, all else being equal I'd rather a human than software, but not an untrained human who thinks they're being soooo goood to the poor disableds by volunteering their time like this. As you say, why not a statutory agency, with accountability and people doing a proper job and some kind of continuity that doesn't depend on the whims of techbros.

[barakta]

Yeah there is definitely an art to describing things usefully for a blind person even within the preferences and some of that is a dialogue. I know when reading menus for former blind colleague I worked out that being a bit like a screenreader software I could say shall I read out the main headings then go down from there. I'd also highlight deals cos colleague often liked to do a 2 for £10 with someone. That way it was quicker than boringly reading the entire menu and as controlled by him as I could make it...

A statutory visual description service would be so awesome, blind folk could be the leaders and trainers of the describers and it'd be available all the time like typetalk is.

And yeah, fuck techbros.

[cosmolinguist]

I've got my partners trained so well to just read out the veggie options on menus, heh. diffrentcolours can even just read out the kinds of beers he thinks I'll like when we're at a pub, he knows not to bother with some other kinds. :) It's definitely a skill, I really miss it when I'm around other friends and I forget they don't have these skills. :)

[nou]

I’m not quite sure whether this sort of thing is included in the work you’re willing to do, so apologies if I’ve misunderstood, but: I would really appreciate your comments on the image descriptions I include in my local history beta-reading requests.

If you don’t want to or don’t have time to read the full text, you can find the descriptions by searching for “Alt text for image”. (In the published versions these will be in the alt attribute, but because of the way I convert the articles for Dreamwidth-posting they come out separately.)

[cosmolinguist]

Sure, I'm happy to do that! It's very much included in the work I'm willing to do.

[nou]

Thank you so much! There’s one up on my journal at the moment, and new ones appear roughly once a month.

[worlds_of_smoke]

Wow, someone really overreacted and it wasn't you.

[shewhostaples]

Yes, this!

[cosmolinguist]

I think this is one reason I was so worried at first because I thought I must've done something completely out of line to get such a reaction. But, when I realized that nope this really wasn't me and I really wasn't just telling myself that because I didn't want to be wrong... It was almost kinda funny?

[worlds_of_smoke]

yeah, I would have been worried too at first.

I find it more sad than funny, really. Like... you can't even take constructive criticism from a random person on a topic that they are actually experts in?? Just grow up.

[cosmolinguist]

On it is sad, but sometimes you reach a point where you're like "okay I realize you're beyond help but also I'm probably seconds away from being blocked so there's nothing I can do and you're not my responsibility and you've just shown your whole ass to a lot of people (it was nice to see how many replies there were to "get the fuck out of my mentions" trying to gently tell this person they were wrong) that made me laugh.

[barakta]

Knowing when to walk away and not your job to fix the broken fucked up and badly behaving person is a hard thing I am trying to learn more and more.

And yay for others telling asshole that they were out of line, that's useful solidarity and hopefully asshole will reflect and own their baby out of pram moment.

[swingandswirl]

As they say on Reddit, no, you are very much not the asshole.

Seconding whoever said that part of the (overreaction) was probably shame/embarrassment at abledsplaining to an actual disabled person, and that special breed of techbro (presumably) toxicity that makes them incapable of recognising that there is not, actually, an app for everything.

Sorry that you had an unpleasant experience, but I'm glad you had support and you're feeling better now.

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah I think some good is coming out of it because it helped me articulate and be conscious of some things I'd only vaguely thought about before.

[otter]

Reading and learning. I very rarely post images here on DW. I'll be sure to add descriptions when I do. On the other site where I post, I try to at least put a sentence or two about images. It's required in most of the larger groups I'm in, or the post gets a comment from the mod reminding, and if the description isn't added, the post is deleted.

[cosmolinguist]

That sounds like a good culture too.

[otter]

Oddly enough, it's on FB, but some of the groups have presences on other platforms as well.

[barakta]

Gosh, person sounds like a #WhatAboutist, suddenly all pissy and defensive cos a disabled person wasn't being a hardline extremist about an access thing that affects them.

I like communities where people are encouraged to describe in visible text (not just alt-text) what images are and if they can't manage to put in a request for someone else to do it in comments. That creates a nice atmosphere where people share the tasks and spoons to do them and everyone wins overall.

Non-disableds or even people-with-different-barriers don't get to go round dictating teh rules, nuance matters and we are all on a constant learning journey. And yes, contradictory needs/stuff exists, and crip-crews handle that better than non-disableds can envisage, cos we just quietly discuss it like fucking adults or maybe stumble around a bit till we work something out, but don't turn it into personal attacks, but try to reflect with kindness to selves and group about options and find a balance.

Sorry you had person snit on you, glad your brain only had a momentary yikes before realising it really was THEM and not you (cos you're an awesome human).

[cosmolinguist]

I like communities where people are encouraged to describe in visible text (not just alt-text)

Yes I do too; it actually allows for far more curb-cut effect. And it just makes it a normal thing people see and they can see how other people write image descriptions because there's still a lot of hesitation around "not wanting to get it wrong" or whatever that leads to people not trying at all. So anything that helps demystify it is good too.

That creates a nice atmosphere where people share the tasks and spoons to do them and everyone wins overall.

That's what I think too, like why wouldn't you want that? Why would anyone rather berate people instead of just sharing the tasks? There already is a culture on Mastodon of adding image descriptions in replies, and often the original posters thank people who do that, it's not even seen as a hostile act that the person didn't describe their own image and I don't want it to start feeling that way which is why I wanted to nip this in the bud.

crip-crews handle that better than non-disableds can envisage,

This is so true (and I love the phrase crip-crews!). This is what I really wish the wider culture understood, and I get why the messaging for ableds is "you have no excuse not to remove barriers when you can" and they don't even understand that yet so they're not ready for the higher-level "some people do have reasons not to actually" experience we're at. But it does mean they overapply their hardline busllshit and cause trouble in cultures that they don't even know exist.

[barakta]

I know some disabled folk who find visual descriptions useful, especially if they are neuro-atypical and are unsure of their parsing of the image's intent and stuff. And yes collective sharing cultures are so nice and more friendly.

Crip-crew is something I coined up after having several supporting disabled friends in court gatherings which have been great fun... And yes, non-disableds can be allies but need to stay in their lane and listen to the nuance in access stuff and not just be hardline and aggressive and bullying about it. Their job is to educate and be compassionate not angry and aggro.