Do you want to customise your Mastodon timeline so that it shows more of the stuff you want, and less of the stuff you don't want?
The timeline on Mastodon deliberately doesn't use any algorithm, and instead lets users decide what they see. There are lots of features you can use to customise your timeline including following accounts/hashtags/groups, filters, lists, notifications, blocks, mutes, boost mutes, conversation mutes and more:
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️ https://fedi.tips/does-mastodon-and-the-fediverse-use-algorithms-does-it-start-pushing-stuff-at-me-based-on-my-interactions
#FediTips #Mastodon
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services lol shame on you FediTips Where is your AltText. 🤣
🤣 🤣
#Alt4you A cartoon fox kneeling in front of a box that has the mastodon logo the verse logo and another logo. I don’t know (it’s got lots of colors and a dialogue bubble inside it.)
@Pineywoozle@masto.ai
What you're seeing isn't an image attachment, so there is no way to put an alt text on it. I didn't add any image, I just posted a link.
Your app or interface may automatically add a preview box of links in posts, which can contain an image from the website being linked to.
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services It shows up as an image for me.. Do text readers not see the blank image box that I see as an image? I was joking with you before but this is a real question. I go to a link I’m posting and if they don’t do #alttext on their page of the image in the link I do a description of the image the link throws up. That way if they go to the link at least the first image will have a description. Sorry if yours has a description on the page. I should have checked first.
@Pineywoozle@masto.ai
Hey, just to add, if you look further down this thread someone has told me how to add alt text to previews, and it works!
The original post's link may still show no alt text as the old version of the preview will still be in the server cache, but when the cache refreshes you'll see alt text on all links to fedi.tips (it may take days or weeks but it will happen).
So, thank you so much for raising this point because I'd never have found out about this alt text fix otherwise! 🙏
@Pineywoozle@masto.ai @FediTips@social.growyourown.services To us, we just hear/feel the link preview. Limk previews never show up as an image for us. We just hear/ feel the title of the preview, and then whatever description the website or page has for SEO or we hear/feel an excerpt of the page. I haven’t been to that page today, but if that’s an image on the actual website itself, I remember everything on the website having alt text and propper markup., so there’s really nothing to call out here I don’t think but thank you for keeping an eye out! For the record, this account always posts alt text when uploading media, but generally this account shares links not so much images
@Pineywoozle@masto.ai
It's technically a link preview, if you click anywhere on it it will take you to the link I included in the post.
I am not sure how accessibility software handles link previews, that's a really good question! Maybe @WeirdWriter@caneandable.social knows?
Previews are not something under the control of the person posting. Not all apps or interfaces generate them though, some just leave the link as it is.
The logos in the illustration are: Fediverse, Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube 🙂
@WeirdWriter@caneandable.social @Pineywoozle@masto.ai @FediTips@social.growyourown.services Jumping into this thread with a bit of web tech talk for @FediTips@social.growyourown.services: it is actually possible to add alt text to the OpenGraph image, using the "og:image:alt" meta property. See here in the spec: https://ogp.me/#structured
If the linked site provides this tag, Mastodon is capable of passing the content along in the alt text of the embedded image. So it'd be up to you to add it to your WordPress theme or config, no idea how it works there.
@WeirdWriter@caneandable.social @FediTips@social.growyourown.services LoL I had hoped that all the giggle emojis would convey that I was teasing, not calling em out. You’ve answered my question. When there’s an image connected to a link I wasn’t sure if boosting the post sends a blank image to the reader so I tend to follow the boost w/ an Alt4you explaining that the image is one thrown up by the link. (Normally I check the link & if they AltText their images I note it. (Totally apologized to Feditips for not checking theirs 🥰
) Thanks!
@WeirdWriter@caneandable.social @Pineywoozle@masto.ai
Thanks Robert!
@julian@fietkau.social @WeirdWriter@caneandable.social @Pineywoozle@masto.ai
Ooooh! Interesting, thank you so much for this info! I will try to implement this.
It works on the preview for your link so Mastodon's web interface seems to be compatible.
EDIT: Okay, I've updated the header on the fedi.tips website, let's see if this works with an example link:
https://fedi.tips/creating-an-isolated-server/
EDIT 2: Okay, it works! Thank you so much to Julian for this tip! 🙏
@julian@fietkau.social @WeirdWriter@caneandable.social @Pineywoozle@masto.ai
Ooooh! Interesting, thank you so much for this info! I will try to implement this.
It works on the preview for your link so Mastodon's web interface seems to be compatible.
EDIT: Okay, I've updated the header on the fedi.tips website, let's see if this works with an example link:
https://fedi.tips/creating-an-isolated-server/
EDIT 2: Okay, it works! Thank you so much to Julian for this tip! 🙏
Fedi.Tips
@pineywoozle ‘s #3WordNote
