mei 🌒& @ckie@pixie.town

Pride celebrations ✨

#pridemonth #pridemonth2023

The common ways that software developers try to solve software correctness reminds me of broader societal issues...

Automated tests: don't try to solve the systemic problem, just institute enough procedures for specific cases and hope you've covered enough of it

Static type checking: don't try to solve the systemic problem, just treat everything and everybody as untrustworthy, you cannot trust anything that isn't verified by a computer

(Please do not reply with 'counterarguments' until you *really* understand where the analogies are coming from here)

please RT this one! looking for opinions of #blind people on #accessibility of custom emoji for #screenreader and #braille. also interested in opinions of other people who would use text descriptions of emoji.

we can't change the way that unicode emoji are handled, but expanding on @bright_helpings's initial suggestion, i am seeing a real chance here to make them not only _as_ accessible as unicode emoji, but _more_ accessible.

before i take this to the authorities, i would like to know what y'all think of this proposal:

we give each custom emoji 2 attributes. one is the short fixed name that is already being used and displayed or read in place of the emoji. the other would be a longer editable description, possibly stored as image alt attribute, though there are maybe other ways to implement it. because of the use case, a tight character limit would be either strictly enforced or throw a warning when it is exceeded. based on the size of braille displays, maybe 20 characters for the short name and 40 for the long description. i am not sure of the precise numbers, what would you like?

on the server admin side, we offer a way to easily change both of these attributes. this allows for free optimisation and also translation to the server's main language.

but to improve upon unicode, we additionally give users the ability to edit the long description for each separate use of each emoji, so they can describe their intent in context rather than offering only a context-removed description of the image. this helps blind people as much as autistics and people unfamiliar with the use of emoji.

for use of screenreaders and braille, we offer a global setting to choose between skipping custom emoji entirely, reading the fixed short name, or reading the editable long description.

for sighted users, we offer a global setting to remove all custom emoji, or replace them with either the fixed short name or the editable long description.

edit: i just realised that these two are the same setting rather than 2 different ones.

we also show the long description on hovering (desktop) or tapping (mobile) the emoji.

what does everyone think about this proposal?

mastodon (specifically): full of moderately tech-competent queers who like to draw, write, make videos, print t-shirts, etc, at marketable quality, and are very invested in a more open, more accessible and equitable society

the broader fediverse: full of FLOSS devs whose projects could provide amazing tools to thousands, bridging social gaps and giving people at the margins of society a chance to participate more fully and freely, if only these projects had reasonable documentation, how-tos, and some kind of (for lack of a better word) marketing

is anyone else seeing the potential union of love that i'm seeing here?

unity docs said i can have 32 bites >:)

on walt whitman's 64th birthday, he wrote a letter to a dear friend of his:

"the principal object of my life seems to have been accomplish’d - I have the most devoted and ardent of friends, and affectionate relatives - and of enemies I really make no account."

walt was not a celebrated poet at the time - he confronted life and find meaning for himself through his friends and relatives

it moves me to tears & inspires me

when walt died, 1,000 people went to his funeral

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