@skye I think DMing people I've never interacted with before to caption won't get the desired result.

If it's a thread I'm interested in I might instead post the caption as a reply.

I'm almost blind and don't use a screen reader often.

I often skip over many toots where the toot is a screenshot image of a text block that I can't see.

@skye captioning other people's work can be hard work, and sometimes I'm not even sure what I am looking at. Not to mention so many images aren't captioned. . . I could make a hobby out of captioning before I retweet. I've pretty much decided it usually isn't worth the trouble and so these days I'm more likely to just ⭐️ and move on.

@skye @wx1g
Well there's a can also be a big difference between telling and making a request, as well as all that other really good stuff you just mentioned!!

@skye As someone who likes to caption images, sometimes I don't have time; it's a quick shot and post while I'm busy with something else, etc...

Being reprimanded for that sucks. The alternative is I don't post anything at all.

People are too quick to judge.

@skye I really love it when people do this. Sometimes I request that *someone* do it when I’m posting a photo on the fly or the app is acting buggy and I can’t do alt text.

@skye I don’t even care if it’s from a stranger, my personal policy is to always say “no” if someone demands that I add a description, but always say “yes” if someone politely asks that I add a description.

Some people act like not adding a description is some gross offense 🙄

@skye it's not actually gonna help people who use screen readers unless it's Tumblr. On Twitter or mastodon, since images are shown without reply, all you get from a screen reader is just "image" and then you move onto the next post. No one checks the comments for context because again the original post sounds so opaque and not worth it. I get that some users are actively hostile to the desire to help make the world more accessible, but this doesn't do much

@skye I have a hard time writing captions, so I pretty much stopped posting images. Wasn't really a problem until this recent shift toward hostility from the previous norm of helpfully captioning. I was always happy for the help and boosted their description.

Now it's all ghouls doing that "I'm going to steal your image and caption it without credit" garbage, completely devoid of human empathy.

@skye I've seen this in action and it hits so much better! Yes, deeply passive-aggressive, but helpful enough to put itself beyond reproach, and totally avoids all the "GTFO of our clubhouse" vibes that preaching at strangers delivers.

@skye a simple solution is to allow anyone to caption uncaptioned images and ask the original poster to approve the caption or not.

@skye
It's the only way I've done it so far and some people are receptive or neutral, but I must say there absolutely are those who criticize it as being "passive-aggressive." Feels like I can't win. 😑

@skye

This is why I follow the bot @PleaseCaption

If I boost something and it doesnt have a caption, I get a reply from the bot.

This allows me to reply with a caption, unboost, or decide the caption/image is not necessary to understand the post.

@skye

@skye Several blind folks on Tw*tter explained it's rather impossible for them to find image descriptions hidden in replies. It may work if OP replies to their own tweet, and thus creating a thread. But it doesn't work well with random replies from other people.

@skye damn this is clever!