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Shalvenay

1:19 AM

@GWarner yeah, I know that I do my darndest to put something useful in alt texts

even if it might not be a total substitute for the pic

2 hours later…

Criggie

3:31 AM

I've not dealt with visually challenged people for a long time - I wonder how much text is required to adequately explain the image for someone who can't see it.
There's the old saw about "a picture is worth a thousand words" so loosely, any problem where a photo is needed would need a lot of words.

Someone asks about a distrubution board and posts a photo saying "here's my board, is this right?" and there's a photo of an open panel.

To describe that photo will require a lot more than "photo of main distribution board"

It could need "distribution board for 100A service in the US, using hutchison breakers. the third on the left is 240V and is labelled dryer. The other labels are light1 light2 dryer heater1 heater2. On the right side the labels are HWC stove AC. The AC breaker is in the OFF position. There is burning on the blue wire in the AC breaker"

Hypothentical situation there btw, but the description half answers its own question.

2 hours later…

uhoh

5:24 AM

Q: How many bubble levels have been used in space? Were any of them used some place besides the Moon?

The lunar retroreflectors left by Apollo astronauts had bubble levels and Sun compasses to that they could be oriented correctly with respect to Earth's average direction. This was necessary to maximize brightness on Earth they still [have to count individual photons reflected and to minimize the...

@Criggie Feel free to add some input to the following in Space Exploration SE:

Q: Shall we make it explicit site policy that screenshots of text ≠ readable text?

As a helpful example only, this otherwise great answer to Is Starship planned to fly directly to the ISS without first stage? Is it even possible? relies heavily on the readers ability to read screenshots of tweets. The following ~120 words from four tweets are available only to folks who can int...

discussion images

3 hours later…

Criggie

8:49 AM

Oh totally agree - a screenshot of text is unhelpful.

My point was perhaps better illustrated by those last two images above - What would be a succinct description in text that would help?

"greyscale photo of a bubble level as deployed on a retro-reflector while on the lunar surface. One astronaut footprint in Lunar regolith visible in upper-right corner."

however that question isn't really improved by the image.

the title of "how many bubble levels..." doesn't depend on the image at all, other than for supporting information

If the question happened to have been "what is this thing on the top of the retroreflector left by apollo missions on the moon?" then the photo is critical to the question.

I'm not really going toward any specific answer here.... trying to think what is the most useful info to a user who depends on the alt text.

I mod in Bicycles.se, and there are not a lot of users who are visually impaired there, so its not come up before

3 hours later…