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Comments on Add an explicit Markdown syntax for decorative images
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Add an explicit Markdown syntax for decorative images
When uploading an image on a Codidact community, users are prompted to add alt text - a text alternative to an image - for that image. If they go to submit a post without doing so, or when submitting a post with blank alt text, they are reminded with a link to the help center page on alt text.
However, in certain cases, particularly for decorative images, blank alt text is the correct approach. The problem is that whether or not it's appropriate in a particular case is not something that can be detected programmatically, and so users who are correctly setting a decorative image to have blank alt text will still be prompted to set alt text for the image (although it will not prevent the post from being submitted with the default or blank alt text).
To make it clearer to the system and to any potential editors, though, I'd like to propose an explicit Markdown syntax for decorative images, which can then be served with blank alt text by the system.
This should be something like  - something unlikely to be used unintentionally and that makes it clear to both the system and human editors that this is an intentional usage of this syntax. The system then knows to serve this image with the alt attribute set to alt="".
Is something along these lines possible to add to the Markdown handling for QPixel?
Mention decorative images in the reminder Problem with a custom approach I'm wary of adding something to Markdown that …
9mo ago
Insert an HTML comment for a decorative image A checkbox could be included in the Image Upload dialog box, allowing a u …
9mo ago
There is already too much nanny-ware in the world, Codidact shouldn't be adding to it. Whether an author includes alt …
9mo ago
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There is already too much nanny-ware in the world, Codidact shouldn't be adding to it.
Whether an author includes alt-text for images, whether that alt-text is meaningful, or whether it is appropriate or unnecessary for a particular image is for the author to decide. This is not different from using proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. The system shouldn't be interfering with author agency, style, and what information is presented.
Of course posts will be judged by all the other users, in part on quality items like grammar, spelling, punctuation, overall formatting, and the like. If you feel a post is badly written, then a downvote can be appropriate. If an image in a post didn't have alt-text but you feel strongly it should have, that's a legitimate reason for a downvote (hopefully with an explanatory comment).
In short, only the human users should be judging posts and dealing with them accordingly. Automated systems shouldn't be trying to make such judgement calls. Not only is it really annoying, but as your question points out, such systems don't have enough information to do the job right.
2 comment threads