Forum:SH:Optional alt text

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Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Optional alt text
icon Main article: Wookieepedia:Layout_Guide#Images

Existing example from said policy: 

[[File:Kylekatarn-pre-talay.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Kyle Katarn during the briefing on his mission to Talay]]

An example of what alt text would look like (in source mode ofc): 

[[File:ArgomonB333-2023THRA3.jpg|thumb|right|300px|alt=Argomon and B-333 in their ship|Argomon and B-333 worked on a black market hauler to transport goods to the Nihil.]]

Figured to bring this up: thoughts on allowing alt text to be added to images, optionally?

And if this were to be implemented, specifying the placement of it in policy would be good. Fandom's help page on the matter seems to suggest putting it before the caption. Or we could put it after the caption, but either way, specifying one way or another would prevent it from being put in different places like shoved between "thumb" and "right/left" or other spots each time. The above mock up shows it before the caption. And if it were to be passed, we'd simply slip a tiny amendment in to note we don't cite captions or alt text, to match up with

A few pages on Wook do this already, I think (more as a test than anything, though). I don't necessarily support making it mandatory; but the reason I'm bringing this up is because the more accessible we can be for screen-readers and the like, the better. Both just because better for reader experience, but also statistically speaking, as Google/SEO ranks sites higher with descriptive alt text. And it doesn't really hurt anything; so figured we might as well start a discussion on it at least. But mainly, since we do have a few pages with alt text already, we should be codifying what order the alt= parameter goes in if it's present, since it's inconsistent atm.—spookywillowwtalk 19:17, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

A workbench with its images using alt text —spookywillowwtalk 19:18, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Support, and before caption seems good to me. Imperators II(Talk) 19:20, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
  • While I support requiring it, I understand the massive backlog that would create for us. I do support a slow, eventual move in that direction. So absolutely support. NBDani TeamFireballLogo-Collider(they/them)Yeager's Repairs 19:22, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
  • I think ideally alt text would be defined in the image files themselves. So they could be reused and included in the infobox. But since we currently can't do that, defining them like this makes sense. ThePedantry (talk) 19:26, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
  • Makes sense to me. Wok142 (talk) 19:52, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
  • Per Pedantry, but support assuming that isn't possible. Ayrehead02 (talk) 19:55, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
    • This actually came up in Fandom's accessibility roundtable today. But no, isn't a planned or current capability.—spookywillowwtalk 20:43, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
  • Sure. Rsand 30 (talk) 20:09, 12 February 2025 (UTC)