retronautickz

Is there any community/magazine for musical theatre and opera?

Because if there isn't, I'm going to make one for each.

That's it. I'm curious.

What kind of platform do you think the fediverse is lacking?

It could be a brand new platform or a much needed fork of an already existing one.

Would you actively participate in that platform if it existed? If so, in which way?

What, do you think, the incorporation of a platform of that type can add to the growth of the fediverse?

What features should this platform have?

Ridiculous ideas for #fediverse projects I've had, that won't come to anything because I know nothing about Software design nor I have the resources to run a server:

1 - A #decentralised #fediverse version of #tumblr

2 - A photoblogging platform with the old fotolog/metroflog aesthetic, but without limits of posts per day, and with the ability to post short videos.

3- A fandom-centric platform with:

• Servers divided by fandom (it doesn't have to be media fandoms, you car collectors can have your own server too)
• Discussion forums that work like communities, magazines, etc and can be followed/joined/subscribed by people in other platforms.
• A wiki part where each fandom/server can post information about the thing it's centred around.
• A personal blog section where the user can post random thoughts. headcanons, recs to #fanwork, etc
• A personal gallery where the user can post their #fanart and #fanvids (although if the videos are too long, there would be the option of "posting through #peertube/#owncast")
• A personal "bookshelf" where people can post their #fanfiction (with the ability of cross-posting from AO3 and the like)
• Chatrooms (public and "private" [as private as posible in a federated/decentralised platform])

see what I mean? Completely ridiculous

#AltText exist to give #Blind people, people with #VPDs, and others the tools to better understand what's on the screen or what's in a image/video.

It doesn't exist for you to write funny commentary about a picture or the person/people/animal(s)/thing(s) depicted in it.

Can you filter/block content on #Kbin?

Today I've spend more time at the clinic going for specialist to specialist and undergoing different medical test than in my home

My beethovenian shitpost on #tumblr is doing numbers

Be mindful also that not only #Blind people require #AltText. People with #Dyslexia, #ADHD #VisualProcessingDisorders or #NeuroVisualDisorders and #ActuallyAutistic people (and others too) also make use of screen readers and text-to-speech software.

I, for example, need TTS apps to read text and interpret image both due to neurodivergency and Neuro-visual issues that often make it imposible for me to read, understand images or differentiate/properly see colours. My optic nerve is thinner than it should, making me often see as if things in front of me were out of focus, and it's getting worse, but I still haven't reach the point of needing screen readers to navigate.

And remember: that blindness is an spectrum. Not every Blind people has cero vision. In fact, most have some level of residual vision that allow them to see colours, or shadows, to give some examples.

If you find a user here that requires alt text for text screenshots, but not for images without text (or viceversa) don't put in doubt their need for it.

Needless to say, don't make fun a light mode users (sadly I've seen this happen in the #Fediverse). Many blind people with low light perception and some people with VPDs need light theme to be able to navigate a site/read.

#AltText part 2: How to write Image descriptions?

• Always say the format of the image your describing. It is an screenshot? A photo? a drawing? a meme?

• Describe the placement of objects in the image and the spatial relation between them.

For example, let's say you have the image of a squirrel with a tree on the background. You could describe the image as:

"A squirrel looking at the camera. behind it, to the left corner there's a tree."

• Describe colours. You don't need to go on board with extremely specific shades, tones,etc, just general colours. But those may be needed when describing flags or things/animals that are two tones of the same colour.

Continuing the example. Let say the squirrel has a darker shade of brown in its ears, tail and chest than in the rest of its body. Describes the eyes too.

Do not forget to mention the colours of background objects too.

"A squirrel looking at the camera. It's completely brown with it tail, ears and chest being of a darker shade of brown than the rest of its body. Its eyes are black and glassy looking.
Behind it, to the left corner there's a tree. Its trunk is a grey-ish brown and the leaves at the top are different shades of yellow, red, and orange"

• If there's a person on the picture, describe race, gender (if you don't know their gender for sure,use they/them pronouns and neutral language and add a presentation type "a person who presents as masculine" instead of "a man"), hair colour and style, clothing, accessories they wear (including glasses, hearing aids, etc) and the like. If the person is known, add their name. Important: what is the person doing?

Let add a person to our example then:

"A photo of a squirrel looking at the camera. It's completely brown with it tail, ears and chest being of a darker shade of brown than the rest of its body. Its eyes are black and glassy looking.
Behind it, to the left corner there's a tree. Its trunk is a grey-ish brown and the leaves at the top are different shades of yellow, red, and orange. Behind the tree, more to the right of the squirrel, a person presenting as feminine, can be seeing looking at their phone. They're wearing a red blouse, a pair of jeans and red shoes. Their hair is blond and curly, and light complexion"

• If known, add the breed of the animal or the type of plant. I don't know much about squirrels, so lets put the tree as an example:

"A photo of a squirrel looking at the camera. It's completely brown with it tail, ears and chest being of a darker shade of brown than the rest of its body. Its eyes are black and glassy looking.
Behind it, to the left corner there's a hazelnut tree. Its trunk is a grey-ish brown and the leaves at the top are different shades of yellow, red, and orange. Behind the tree, more to the right of the squirrel, a person presenting as feminine, can be seeing looking at their phone. They're wearing a red blouse, a pair of jeans and red shoes. Their hair is blond and curly, and light complexion"

• Describe emotions if posible.

"A photo of a squirrel looking curiously at the camera. It's completely brown with it tail, ears and chest being of a darker shade of brown than the rest of its body. Its eyes are black and glassy looking.
Behind it, to the left corner there's a hazelnut tree. Its trunk is a grey-ish brown and the leaves at the top are different shades of yellow, red, and orange. Behind the tree, more to the right of the squirrel, a person presenting as feminine, can be seeing looking at their phone. They seem to be laughing as something. They're wearing a red blouse, a pair of jeans and red shoes. Their hair is blond and curly, and light complexion"

#Lemmy #Kbin #Thrediverse #Accessibility

Alt Text on the Thrediverse

You can add #AltText in both #Lemmy and #Kbin by writing the image description between the brackets

! [Put your alt text here] (url)

Also, when you upload images from your pc on #kbin there's a text box below (with the words "Imagine alternative text" above it) where you can put your image description.

Other things to take into account to be more accesible to screen reader and TTS software users:

• Casing of multi-word tags: Always write the first letter of each word on a hashtag containing several word uppercase. This way screen readers and TTS software can interpret and read them as separated words. Otherwise it would read them as one big nonsensical word

#/LikeThis not #/likethis

• Avoid fancy/special fonts (I'm begging you): special fonts cannot be detected by screen readers and TTS software.
  Most of the time the letters are actually phonetic or mathematical symbols and the software interpret them as such.

• Emojis are more accessible than emoticons, kaomoji and ASCII ART. Similar to fancy fonts with words, emoticons, koamoji and ASCII art make use of phonetic, mathematical, scientific and punctuation symbols to convey images. These are often read by assistive technology as the separated symbols that form the image, and not as the thing they're meant to represent. Emojis, on the other hand, have a text name incorporated that can be detected by these kind of software.

• I don't think it's going to be a problem here, but wordle is a nightmare for Screen readers/TTS software as they can't detect the words and only describe the squares one by one. It's better to screenshot it and add an explanation of the results in alt text.

Some of you had never been in forums, public chatrooms or even Tumblr, and it shows...

Don't go sharing personal/sensible information here. There's no privacy, no end-to-end encryption on the fediverse.

what you share by private message is visible not only to you and the person/people you're talking to, but also by your server admins and the admin of the servers the people you send the messages to belong to.