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@Kamon :nonbinary_flag: 
@Andre Louis Since you've mentioned memes, how do you prefer them being explained?
Are you okay with a link to the respective KnowYourMeme page that fully explains the meme in the post text?
Or do you require an explanation of the meme including its history, basically an unabridged re-telling of the KnowYourMeme page, within the post?
Also, do you need a full, detailed description of the image itself?
(Disclaimer: I'm not on Mastodon. I don't have a 500-character limit. I'm on Hubzilla, and I don't have any character limit I know of.)
@Andre Louis Since you've mentioned memes, how do you prefer them being explained?Are you okay with a link to the respective KnowYourMeme page that fully explains the meme in the post text?
Or do you require an explanation of the meme including its history, basically an unabridged re-telling of the KnowYourMeme page, within the post?
Also, do you need a full, detailed description of the image itself?
(Disclaimer: I'm not on Mastodon. I don't have a 500-character limit. I'm on Hubzilla, and I don't have any character limit I know of.)
@autistic_enby@hachyderm.io@jupiter_rowland for me I need the name is the meme format so I can search for it on KnowYourMeme if I want to (eg: Hide the pain Harold), and maybe what is implied by it in this specific case (eg: this implies that bla bla is hard and I wish to avoid it), people say explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog but I don't think of it this way.
@Nour (aka Autistic Enby) I'm somewhat afraid of starting to explain my meme posts. I mean they're targetted at a very very niche audience. They're almost all about OpenSim, sometimes also about Second Life. They're targetted at users of these virtual worlds. And the users of these virtual worlds usually don't need the joke explained.
Those who are outside that niche audience, on the other hand, would need a whole lot of explanation. When explaining my meme posts, I would have no prior knowledge to base my explanations on, and so I'd have to start at zero. I'd have to explain what OpenSim is. I might also have to explain what Second Life is and, no, it isn't dead. On top of that, I'd have to explain a lot about the technology and/or culture as far as that's relevant for the explanation, and it often is. Then I'd have to explain each element referenced by the meme. And only then can I explain how the meme relates to these elements.
I'd have to pile so much information on casual users that they still wouldn't understand it because it'd simply be too much at once.
I'm somewhat afraid of starting to explain my meme posts. I mean they're targetted at a very very niche audience. They're almost all about OpenSim, sometimes also about Second Life. They're targetted at users of these virtual worlds. And the users of these virtual worlds usually don't need the joke explained.Those who are outside that niche audience, on the other hand, would need a whole lot of explanation. When explaining my meme posts, I would have no prior knowledge to base my explanations on, and so I'd have to start at zero. I'd have to explain what OpenSim is. I might also have to explain what Second Life is and, no, it isn't dead. On top of that, I'd have to explain a lot about the technology and/or culture as far as that's relevant for the explanation, and it often is. Then I'd have to explain each element referenced by the meme. And only then can I explain how the meme relates to these elements.
I'd have to pile so much information on casual users that they still wouldn't understand it because it'd simply be too much at once.
@jupiter_rowland yeah that's why I didn't say to explain the meme, just a searchable name, and if possible a sentence simplifying what is implied by the use of this meme in this specific case, it can be as simple as "it's implied that so so is bad", and only those who know the meme (or read about it) will know the nuance, and that's fine, the passer by who isn't invested would just know why you chose to use this meme (the summarized meaning it conveys in this specific case only).
@Nour (aka Autistic Enby) Well, I didn't want to explain the meme template itself in the description. But for my own memes, I'd have to explain what I'm meming about.
Let's take this meme picture for example.
As for the template, I could just link to the KnowYourMeme page for Adidas Sports Bra Medium Support. But next to nobody would understand it anyway. That's because next to nobody would know what this variant of the meme is actually referencing. Or would you?
And that's what I'd have to explain. When I posted that image, I did mention that it references mesh bodies in Second Life and OpenSim. But few people remember what Second Life is, and almost nobody knows what OpenSim is.
So I'd have to explain what Second Life is and then what OpenSim is because you have to know what Second Life is in order to understand what OpenSim is.
Then I'd have to explain what a mesh body is. In order to make that understandable, I'd have to explain what rigged mesh is. In oder to make that understandable, I'd have to explain what mesh is, why it's a thing and so special, what was there before mesh etc. I'd also have to explain that both Second Life and OpenSim have highly customisable, highly modular avatars which is likely to surprise even those who think they know virtual worlds.
Then I'd have to explain that a body shape like a professional latina porn star after a breast enlargement is the default standard for mesh bodies in both Second Life and OpenSim. That there exist bodies at various degrees of being even more voluptuous. And that mesh bodies with what'd be a normal shape in real life are being referred to as "petite" or "perky" in Second Life and OpenSim.
So while I could explain the meme with a hyperlink, I'd have to explain what the meme is about with a 5,000-character infodump. Including content warnings because the post would be so outrageously long.
Well, I didn't want to explain the meme template itself in the description. But for my own memes, I'd have to explain what I'm meming about.Let's take this meme picture for example.
As for the template, I could just link to the KnowYourMeme page for Adidas Sports Bra Medium Support. But next to nobody would understand it anyway. That's because next to nobody would know what this variant of the meme is actually referencing. Or would you?
And that's what I'd have to explain. When I posted that image, I did mention that it references mesh bodies in Second Life and OpenSim. But few people remember what Second Life is, and almost nobody knows what OpenSim is.
So I'd have to explain what Second Life is and then what OpenSim is because you have to know what Second Life is in order to understand what OpenSim is.
Then I'd have to explain what a mesh body is. In order to make that understandable, I'd have to explain what rigged mesh is. In oder to make that understandable, I'd have to explain what mesh is, why it's a thing and so special, what was there before mesh etc. I'd also have to explain that both Second Life and OpenSim have highly customisable, highly modular avatars which is likely to surprise even those who think they know virtual worlds.
Then I'd have to explain that a body shape like a professional latina porn star after a breast enlargement is the default standard for mesh bodies in both Second Life and OpenSim. That there exist bodies at various degrees of being even more voluptuous. And that mesh bodies with what'd be a normal shape in real life are being referred to as "petite" or "perky" in Second Life and OpenSim.
So while I could explain the meme with a hyperlink, I'd have to explain what the meme is about with a 5,000-character infodump. Including content warnings because the post would be so outrageously long.
hub.netzgemeinde.euJupiter RowlandAn avatar roaming the decentralised and federated 3-D virtual worlds based on OpenSimulator, a free and open-source server-side re-implementation of Second Life. Mostly talking about OpenSim, sometimes about other virtual worlds, occasionally about the Fediverse beyond Mastodon. No, the Fediverse is not only Mastodon.
Even if you see me on Mastodon, I'm not on Mastodon myself. I'm on [url=https://hubzilla.org]Hubzilla[/url] which is neither a Mastodon instance nor a Mastodon fork. In fact, it's older and much more powerful than Mastodon. And it has always been connected to Mastodon.
I regularly write posts with way more than 500 characters. If that disturbs you, block me now, but don't complain. I'm not on Mastodon, I don't have a character limit here.
I rather give too many content warnings than too few. But I have absolutely no means of blanking out pictures for Mastodon users.
I always describe my images, no matter how long it takes. My posts with image descriptions tend to be my longest. Don't go looking for my image descriptions in the alt-text; they're always in the post text which is always hidden behind a content warning due to being over 500 characters long.
If you follow me, and I "follow" you back, I don't actually follow you and receive your posts. Unless you've got something to say that's interesting to me within the scope of this channel, or I know you from OpenSim, I block your posts. I only "follow" you back because Hubzilla requires me to do that to allow you to follow me. But I can read your comments and direct messages. If you boost a lot of uninteresting stuff, I'll block you boosts.
My "birthday" isn't my actual birthday but my rezday. My first avatar has been around since that day.
If you happen to know German, maybe my "homepage" is something for you, a blog which, much like this channel, is about OpenSim and generally virtual worlds.
#[zrl=https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/search?tag=OpenSim]OpenSim[/zrl] #[zrl=https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/search?tag=OpenSimulator]OpenSimulator[/zrl] #[zrl=https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/search?tag=VirtualWorlds]VirtualWorlds[/zrl] #[zrl=https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/search?tag=Metaverse]Metaverse[/zrl] #[zrl=https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/search?tag=SocialVR]SocialVR[/zrl] #[zrl=https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/search?tag=fedi22]fedi22[/zrl]
@jupiter_rowland what you're meming *about* is something that goes outside the context of the image (and it's alt text), that kind of question would apply to text-only posts as well, it's about "do I explain the context behind what I just wrote?" and I think that's a different thing.
Yeah it would be great if we can always reference the context (a link to a community wiki with all the history), but that's often unfeasible.
@jupiter_rowland To me, alt-text is basically "what would you have to write if you didn't have the ability to attach that image?", kind of undoing the "a picture is worth a thousand words" by writing a summarized hundred words as the alt text.
In the case of memes, they are often used to comedically express a certain feeling or situation (eg: drake meme is to compare a bad thing with a good thing), and that's what I think is good to have in meme alt text.
@Nour (aka Autistic Enby) @Daniel Gibson @Andre Louis Since we were already taking about descriptions in meme posts, here's a brand-new experimental meme post. This time, I've linked to the image because embedding it would have put it into plain sight for everyone on Mastodon with no chance for me to hide it. I had to do it because it contains eye contact.
There's a KnowYourMeme link that replaces the explanation of the meme itself. I've transcribed my text, and that's all description of my edit. Unlike what I do on my original non-meme images, I did not describe the image in all details in thousands or even tens of thousands of characters, nor did I mention how the text is styled, which typeface/font was used and which parts of the text are placed where.
Also, I deliberately left out my usual detailed OpenSim explanation. Within the context of the post, it's irrelevant on which virtual world said events take place, and OpenSim is not mentioned until the hashtag block. I want to see if I can get away with that. Maybe I'd generally get away without the explanation, maybe I will only this time because I didn't mention OpenSim at all.
On Mastodon if that's better for you: https://mastodon.social/@jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu/111376923360434155
Original on Hubzilla: https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/item/32235d2b-4a7f-4925-b1a2-b34b6473dba1
@Daniel Gibson @Andre Louis Since we were already taking about descriptions in meme posts, here's a brand-new experimental meme post. This time, I've linked to the image because embedding it would have put it into plain sight for everyone on Mastodon with no chance for me to hide it. I had to do it because it contains eye contact.There's a KnowYourMeme link that replaces the explanation of the meme itself. I've transcribed my text, and that's all description of my edit. Unlike what I do on my original non-meme images, I did not describe the image in all details in thousands or even tens of thousands of characters, nor did I mention how the text is styled, which typeface/font was used and which parts of the text are placed where.
Also, I deliberately left out my usual detailed OpenSim explanation. Within the context of the post, it's irrelevant on which virtual world said events take place, and OpenSim is not mentioned until the hashtag block. I want to see if I can get away with that. Maybe I'd generally get away without the explanation, maybe I will only this time because I didn't mention OpenSim at all.
On Mastodon if that's better for you: https://mastodon.social/@jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu/111376923360434155
Original on Hubzilla: https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/item/32235d2b-4a7f-4925-b1a2-b34b6473dba1
hub.netzgemeinde.euTesting a new meme-posting formatOne does not simply...; CW: long (slightly over 1,600 characters, not counting markup), eye contact in linked and previewed image
@Nour (aka Autistic Enby) That's why I personally would never put a detailed explanation into alt-text: People who can't access alt-text couldn't access that information if it were in the alt-text.
Then again, I've got the luxury of not having to deal with character limits. Not except for certain projects enforcing the 1,500-character alt-text limit even on external content. In the post text, I'll probably never run out of space.
The obvious downside would be that I'd need a "CW: long" content warning on all my meme posts as well due to their excessive length (= over 500 characters).
That's why I personally would never put a detailed explanation into alt-text: People who can't access alt-text couldn't access that information if it were in the alt-text.Then again, I've got the luxury of not having to deal with character limits. Not except for certain projects enforcing the 1,500-character alt-text limit even on external content. In the post text, I'll probably never run out of space.
The obvious downside would be that I'd need a "CW: long" content warning on all my meme posts as well due to their excessive length (= over 500 characters).