@jacqui oh no, I'm sorry to hear that. I honestly hadn't noticed an increase in uncaptioned images. I agree that fedi is better when more images are described.

It seemed like you were suggesting that someone who doesn't have the energy to fully transcribe an image with lots of text on it shouldn't post it. I'm sorry if I misunderstood.

I know that transcription has been a barrier for me in the past. Knowing that I can just *describe* an image, rather than fully transcribing each diagram, has made me feel more comfortable posting content that communicates a message visually. In the case of a screenshot, a source (the opening paragraph to Moby Dick) can be a bit less effort but still helpful.

It can sometimes be difficult to transcribe things like complicated flow charts, too. Usually, a caption like "a diagram showing that [step] will lead to more kittens, less excess strawberries, and many more toots, along with some really complicated relationships between many different Tumblr memes from 2017. It is very silly." is just fine, even though it can feel a bit like a cop-out.

Would a "complete" transcription help? It can, yeah. There's a chance that a noisy transcription that shows everything but the actual focus of the picture is kinda "buried" might not be as helpful as a briefer description, though. It kinda depends and usually works out best if people use their best judgement.

But yeah, that does totally mean planning on taking a minute or so to describe a picture (if ya can) or to @ someone to help transcribe, and some folks might not be used to that.

If you're curious, there's some resources on writing image descriptions for difficult content I can link, if you'd like. I think NASA had some nice advice? Otherwise, no worries at all. I'm just parroting what I've heard from vision-impaired folks on here over the last year or two.