We Interrupt This Blaugust

Sigh.

Y'all.

I need y'all to fucking do better.

And I needed to bitch about this.

We're Talking About Accessibility

Specifically, when it comes to audio.

I have some sorta audio processing disorder that has me not quite catching a few words (or sentences) here and there. Usually, I can shamble through it. But on bad days, it is tough as fuck and I just get a headache.

I love when CC is utilized properly. I love it more when there is a transcript that I can just read instead.

This hasn't been a major problem until I asked someone the transcription to a video. I wanted to participate in the discussion they were having on BlueSky.

...Yeah, They Got Me

Yeah, I'm eating a little crow here as former Mx. I'll Never Get A BlueSky Account. Because now I actually have a BlueSky/AtProto account. But I only do because it is a fork of this particular software (BlackSky, to be precise). I was also considering Wafrm, which has native ATProto support without requiring a bridge or the user to be on a BlueSky server.

I'm not on, by all intents and purposes, the "flagship instance" of BlueSky, so I can still say stuff like "JK Rowling can kiss the deepest, blackest part of my ass" without fear of getting suspended. The BlackSky team is cool like that. :3

But anyway.

A Slight Culture Shock

I've been on Mastodon for years-- the decent servers, at that-- where most people give a flying flip about ensuring their posts are as accessible as possible. So I kinda got a bit of a culture shock when my requests for CCs and transcripts were met with resistance on BlueSky.

I find this more of a culture issue (as in, BS users just don't think about this sorta thing), and general overculture thinking where accessibility is an afterthought, at best. You know, as usual.

The Excuses

I don't get an "oh shit, sorry! Lemme fix that or get someone that can" but instead...

• "I can only use the tools they provide!"
• "But each post only allows 300 characters!"
• "This is just the style of the text"
• "It's so hard, tho!"

To which I say, skill issue.

When I was still on Facebook, probably the most inaccessible POS on the planet, a whole bunch of us made it work. We connected with people who used screen readers on the best way to meet their needs. We described our images. We took the time to transcript a few videos, when we didn't find one.

Couldn't get CC? A summary or transcript in the comment below the video, and mark it as such ("Transcript:"). Didn't have a dedicated field for ALT text? It's a subcomment. Constrained by character limits? Multiple comments. Don't have the spoons or the time? Tag someone else in and they'll do it for you (for example, using #Alt4Me).

And when we fucked up, we fixed it.

No excuse.

If there isn't a way, make one.

Or be honest and say you just don't want to.

Re: Closed Captioning

Maybe I'm old, but I have a specific thing in mind when I mean "Closed Captioning," or CC. It is what is being said on the screen, in a legible font, complete with correct punctuation and notes of when sound effects are used.

not this TikTok trend, one-word-at-a-time, lacks punctuation, blazing-fast, bouncy-animation-that-is-too-hard-to-fully-parse bullshit

... yeah I really hate that type. It's fine for, maybe, a 10 second video, but any longer than that and you run the risk of just being annoying as hell. It just becomes a long run-on sentence that either gets in the way of the video, or becomes an unexpected hurdle for understanding it.

And before you ask-- yes, auto-generated captions are trash. Don't even talk to me about AI-generated anything (especially when it comes to any sort of accessibility). Get that shit out of my face or I will destroy you. I got eye lasers and shit.

I Thought You Fuckers Were All About Metrics

Don't you want more people to access your content?

I guess not, if this is such a big case for you.

It is really not that fucking hard. All it takes is effort and a bit of empathy.

So uh fuck me I guess, and I'll ignore your shit since it isn't accessible to me, anyway.

Yeah that's all I got for this section.

Just Fucking Try, OK?!

So needless to say, I never did get that transcript. They decided to respond with a paragraph about how they couldn't do it. And that could've been the start of the transcript I was asking for. Or a summary!

But the more people are aware of this sort of thing, the better.

Now they just got to try.