There already is alt text in the markdon in the body, but yeah it would be good to have it for the header picture too.
Although I'm hoping for AI to be able to do that automatically.
this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
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Writing good alt text is more than just identifying the objects in an image. It requires some understanding of the context around why the image is being included. Harvard provides some great advice for humans to do this well at https://accessibility.huit.harvard.edu/describe-content-images.
Unless Elon puts Tesla's FSD team on this problem, it will be many years before AI can do this well. With the FSD team on it, it would only take a decade.
That's implying that the Lemmy devs are focused on new features.
I haven't ever seen any user requested feature implemented.
Not if it's policed as harshly as I hear that it is on Mastodon.
It is true that a lot of people don't boost posts unless they have alt text, but if they wouldn't do that, people wouldn't bother to write alt text and it wouldn't make much of a difference for the visually impaired.