#yes i've contradicted myself on this matter several times over on this blog

[allthegothihopgirls]

when did all pop become trashy angst with an upbeat chorus

[stimtoybox]

hello! sometimes i see people putting image descriptions under read mores so it takes up less space, and in theory i like this for a few reasons (my own neurodivergence included) but i've been wondering recently: is putting it under a read more less accessable? i feel like it could be for several reasons but i'm worried about overextending the ask limit if i try to list them all, heh... point is, is it more convenient for those who need descs to leave them out from under a rm or does it matter?

This is one of those “you can do it several different ways and your approach will be wrong for somebody” questions, which is why, I think, there is no hard answer.

It would be nice if there were a magical bullet-point list one can check off to Make A Post Accessible for Everybody, but the truth is often that one person’s accessibility feature can be one person’s barrier to that same content. It’s not as simple as “a ramp helps everybody so just put one in” when it comes to text design/formatting, especially on a site as dodgy as Tumblr.

(There’s an image post of Ways To Make Your Site Accessible For Different Disabilities floating around Tumblr and the net in general, and a few of the requirements for various categories of access needs directly contradict each other. I’ll be honest: I need image descriptions for GIFs, but image descriptions make a post longer to scroll through, and that’s bad for my hands. So my own needs clash, and I am absolutely not the only disabled person in this situation.)

Note: I’m going to rant for three paragraphs about why Tumblr sucks on this point before I get to the actual point of answering your question.

The truth, the truth that frustrates me no end, is that this shouldn’t even be a conversation. Tumblr should allow you to do what we all do on WordPress: upload a photo, add a description in the alt text, and then post your image on the page. (You don’t need HTML to do this; it’s part of theWYSIWYG/rich text editor experience sites like WordPress and Tumblr provide.) Screen readers can access the alt text; those who don’t need it have nothing to scroll past. The whole issue on whether or not you tuck descriptions under a read more cut should not be a thing, because Tumblr should give us an option, after uploading the photo, to add a description via alt text. It lets us provide an image source, so providing alt text isn’t difficult.

(And those who need the alt text for processing reasons can access the alt text in other ways - right click on the image and selecting Image Info in Firefox will bring it up, for example - alt text is displayed on the line “Associated Text”.)

Tumblr is failing its disabled userbase by not allowing alt text. I can use images with alt text I’ve uploaded elsewhere inserted into a text post, but Tumblr won’t show them on dashboard view because they’re an external image. (In other words, it won’t give even those of us with HTML skills the ability to employ a workaround.) When you upload a photo yourself to Tumblr as a photo post, even if you change to HTML from rich text, you have no access to the photo’s HTML to add a description as alt text.

@staff: give us alt text!

Actual answer to your question:

Factors to consider in whether or not something goes under a cut largely include post length and how easy it is for someone to click on the “read more” link. (This could be hard for visual accessibility reasons; it can also be hard for physical/movement accessibility reasons.) I’ll be honest: things tucked under a read more cut here on Tumblr are not often read, even by able-bodied people. (Contrast to WordPress or LJ/DW, where everything is cut for convenience, but the norm is that one clicks on a post to read it fully. One’s dashboard is a very different thing in pacing and content.) This is why I don’t tuck anything more than the Extremely Ridiculously Absurdly long posts under a cut. I tag, which doesn’t help app users, but I don’t read more cut unless my length is absurd.

(Forgive me, but if I’ve spent this long on a post, I want people to read it. I know how hard it is to scroll through long posts, especially if they’re off topic or don’t interest me, but I’m a writer. Wanting people to read my words is kind of the point.)

This is why I dislike pricing or sourcing information under a cut, something often done by stim blogs. That information should be accessible, and text under a cut goes unseen by most followers. Know that, whenever you cut text. People won’t see it. We do not take the time to click the read more and open the post in a new window (especially on mobile). Important information should never go under a read more.

So. Personally, I only cut long descriptions, knowing that most people aren’t going to bother to check out the cut text (myself included). Yes, this makes posts longer and less accessible in one way, but more accessible in another. If a description takes up more than an eight-line paragraph - because anything more than that won’t be read or is too hard to skip past - then I break it up into multiple paragraphs and toss it under a read more. As one long paragraph, it isn’t readable anyway, so I don’t think I’m doing more harm by cutting it and making it readable, if harder to access. If it’s a short paragraph, though, and it doesn’t make the post itself too long, I think it is slightly more accessible to go uncut, even if it adds extra scrolling or extra text to skip past (knowing that some of us aren’t capable of extra scrolling or skipping text).

(Additionally, it’s a rough Tumblr trend to put a description immediately under the image where possible, and descriptions under a read more break that trend. The autistic in me dislikes the inconsistency. My brain is already trained to skip over the text immediately under an image if it’s wrapped in square brackets, and I like sticking to that brain training where possible.)

However, to tuck all descriptions under a read more cut isn’t wrong. The truth is that we’re in a bad situation, and any way of approaching it is flawed because the fix that would better tackle the problem (alt text) has been denied us.

Honestly, it’s just a matter of preference. I have reasons for doing it my way, but they’re not hard and fast rules, and I expect people to disagree with me (and hard) on some of my preferences.

As long as you’re doing your best (within your limitations) to be accessible and you’re reasonably consistent in what and how you’re doing it, anon, I think you’re okay.

Does that help you at all? I know it’s a lot of words for not a lot of answer!

- Mod K.A.