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I think it's a design issue.
When you add an image, the alt-text box pops up near the bottom of the page (it is not visible before you add an image). If you're not looking for it/aware of it, it's easy to miss. I don't post a ton of image posts for example, so if I did one it stands to reason I might forget if I was too quick to post.
The alt-text box should really pop up right below the image, above where you input the body of the post, not farther down the page. In fact it could always be there but just be greyed out until an image is added.
useless red circle:
I don't know if it's different elsewhere, but as a mainly-comments poster I'd add (w/Lemmy) that the 'uploads' section doesn't store alt-text (e.g. copy markdown) either. So if you had a reason to use an image multiple times in comments it's either re-write or copy it from an old comment source. Putting multiple images in a post might handle that better (things other people might actually use too), not so much for niche and/or personal art/technical stuff... and it also assumes a user can still find it.
Also, it probably doesn't help that it isn't given a tooltip when hovering over an image in a comment like it does for post icons (average users will only notice the lack of alt-text if they specifically check for it with: 1. view source 2. inspect accessibility properties).
I do try, sometimes I don't add it especially when it feels complicated to describe and/or I it seems like there's probably enough words for context already. That and I'm more likely to do it if I made the image. Tenor is an exception because there is possibility of it providing a content description I can copy or at least re-work, but half the time it's garbage.
I do think the design could be better, but I'm not sure the mastodon design is so much better as to explain the difference between the two:
There it is - Mastodon goes out of it's way to warn the user that they haven't provided alt text whereas Lemmy says
(optional)Well, as long as I have the piefed dev on the line, I'll request the number one masto feature I think would move the needle on alt text in the threadiverse: there's a user preference you can enable called "Warn me before posting media without alt text" that pops this modal when enabled
Yeah, could do. PieFed already does fairly ok at this, explaining the rationale for providing alt text:
All the mobile apps I checked do something similar, with no extra nudging, just an empty text field. Generally the mobile app devs are keen on new ideas like this, maybe do a post in the Voyager or Blorp community and see where that goes.