You can be really helpful, pleasant and understanding in a message about missing alt-text, which the recipient then publicly thanks you for, and still get a foul-mouthed tirade from some intolerant recent arrival from Musk's domain. Guess how I know...

Case in point: I think alt-text is cool, and I always add it to photos. But if I forget and you decide it's your job to "correct" me, I will block you without remorse and without hesitation.

We CHOOSE our online community. Behavior police are not welcome in mine.

But yes, I get that there’s no point to continuing to discuss this with you. Nothing I say will change your heart or mind, whereas I simply do not accept your framing of the stakes. It’s probably for the best, then, if I simply wish you good luck.

Alt-text in particular is not a "complicated question", eh?

If you saw a blind person who needed your help crossing a street or something you would help without hesitation and feel good about yourself afterward.

Well, alt-text is that. Folks who don't get that may not be "moral monsters", but I'm not gonna miss them.

One of the ways we establish a social norm (constructively building culture) is through multiply repeating the messages: this is ok, this is not ok. Naturally many people fear/hate change, and they want to stay in their old culture wherever they go. Karl Pilkington bringing bags of British crisps as he travels the world, US tourists demanding hamburgers in Paris. They hate being scolded for not embracing something unfamiliar.

I'm glad to participate in a culture of going the extra mile to e.g. add alt-text to accommodate blind folk.

I don't want "allies, comrades and friends" who kinda suck.

I think the larger question to ask is how the system distributes harms – both the harms to people who need them being unable to avail themselves of image descriptions, and the harms to one’s ego caused by inartful requests or demands for those descriptions. We treat the latter as not-real and costless, but I don’t think they are.

And while I tend to assume that the people doing it are well-meaning, it so easily comes across the wrong way that I’m not sure it’d ever be worthwhile.

I completely agree with that “don’t be a dick about it” guideline, but *usually* what I see is humorless dicks complaining that *everyone else here* and “mastodon scold culture” is the problem.

Frame it as trying to tell a stranger their fly is unzipped or their tie clashes:

- do you need to do it publically?
- do you need to do it at all?

Maybe, just maybe, the interface reminding people they're not using alt text is way way more than enough?

It's interesting that I've never gotten harassed for using *insufficient* or even *incorrect* alt text - most of the scolds/bots never bother to actually read it or can't evaluate it.

@adamgreenfield @drewtowler

It’s not a binary, I feel. There can be good-natured ways to add alt text to other people’s posts and crappy ways to do it. An expression of gratitude for the OP, a generosity of spirit can go a long way.

But also people are erratic. Sometimes I’m in a shitty mood and will frame things badly.

You post at the top frames the landscape beautifully