This is obviously not needed for pictures of your pets or where the content is otherwise purely visual in nature.
Sorry, why is this obvious? What makes pictures of pets different from other pictures? And what does "purely visual" mean?
this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2026
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Dogs
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A community about dogs.
Breeds, tips and tricks about training and behaviour, news affecting dog owners, canine photography, dog-related art and any questions related to dog ownership.
Rules
- Posts must be related to dogs or dog ownership and must not be void of content.
- This is a neutral space. No bigotry or personal attacks. Criticism should be polite and constructive.
- No automated content. This includes AI generated imagery, post body, articles, comments or automated accounts.
- No advertising or self-promotion.
- Illegal or unethical practices are frowned upon, and any comments or posts suggesting them will be removed. This includes, but is not limited to, backyard breeding, ear and tail cropping, fake service animals, negative reinforcement, alpha/pack/dominance theory, and eugenics.
- No judging or attacking community members who care for dogs with cropped ears, docked tails, or those from puppy mills or questionable sources. While we discourage these practices (per Rule 5), all dogs deserve loving homes and compassionate care regardless of their background or physical alterations.
- No breed discrimination, all breeds welcome. Our stance matches the ASPCA's official stance and is not up for debate.
- Citing your sources when making a claim is encouraged. Misinformation will be removed.
- When posting an image containing text, provide alt text in the post body. This helps users with limited vision participate in our community. Providing alt text on all image posts is strongly encouraged.
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I think they mean if the alt text is just "a picture of a dog" then that won't really help a person with visual impairments. But if it's a meme or something and contains text, then the text can be transcribed into the alt-text so a person can still read it.
What do you mean that won't help? "A picture of a dog" tells a person with visual impairments what the picture is. That's the whole point. If you don't put anything, they'll just know that there's a picture but not if it's important or interesting or worth their time to ask.
What might a picture with no further context in a community called "dogs" be about?
Who knows? The person who can't see it certainly doesn't.
That does not mean everything posted here is exclusively photographs of dogs and nothing else. And even then an image description would make sense because what does the dog look like, what is it doing, is there anything else interesting about the picture?
Did you click the link? It was a /j 😄
...oh. That went right past me, hah 😅
I'm 100% open to discussion on that one, but it's because I consider pictures of pets to be "decorative" (as per WCAG) as a no-vision user would get no useful benefit from knowing that there is a picture of a dog as the enjoyment is mostly visual, while a low-vision user would still have a blurry, distorted or partially obstructed view of the picture to kinda figure out what's going on.
I also didn't want to make the rule too intense as my target is really just text in posts, and it's uncommon for Lemmy communities to request users to add alt text, so people may not know how much or how little description to add to their alt text anyway.
I guess it's not so obvious after all 😅
The "decorative" category is for websites where you can have visual design elements accompanying text, with the text being the important bit. If you're making an entire post about a picture, it's not decorative. You're showing the picture to other people, the content of the picture is the point of your post.
You're right, I think I'm used to work making us put full photographs in our apps that actually add nothing of value other than "pretty splash page" so I got used to it haha
I'll mull it over. I don't want to burden and scare users too much either with how small Lemmy's user base already is, though accessibility is important to me. My main issue is with text-in-image posts, like Twitter screenshots and those Hallmark style graphics.
I agree with your desire for alt text as well as your concern about burdening people - most people don't even know it exists, let alone how to write it.
Maybe instead of a rule, you could make it a suggestion (for all posts, not just images with text)? That would still encourage the behavior without mandating it. If someone else provides alt text in a comment, you could potentially pin that as well to make sure it's easily findable.
I think I want to encourage alt text on all posts but make it mandatory on text-as-image posts. At least a transcription of the text.
I'm not always around, so I can't guarantee a quick pin (does Lemmy even have a pin feature besides "speak as moderator"?)
Lemmy does have a feature to "Feature in community".
I'm here to support the encouraging of all images having alt text. People with low vision may not get the same view of the image, but without alt text they may not even know what the image is at all!
Alt text for pictures of pet dogs should also be more than just "picture of dog". Whatever is important in the picture should be included, e.g. "A picture of my golden retriever sitting on a couch, looking at camera with happy look on her face".
This way someone who can't see the picture well can still participate, e.g. "Oh I love golden retrievers, I have three and they are always chewing up my slippers but I love them anyway".
I'm here fighting for us to get better at alt text as it's something Lemmy does poorly compared to Mastodon.
I'm sold, thank you for the write-up! I'll add a "adding alt text to pictures is heavily encouraged" note next to the mandatory alt text for text images rule.
I generally add an alt tag when I upload images as comments, but Lemmy does not prompt you for one when uploading a main image to a post, so I think it's a good reminder to add it to the post body.
And yes, I'm aware of "feature in community", but isn't that only for posts?
but Lemmy does not prompt you for one when uploading a main image to a post,
If you're adding an image post there is an alt text field, but it doesn't show until the image is uploaded, and Lemmy doesn't try to bring attention to it. Mastodon is definitely better in that regard.
And yes, I’m aware of “feature in community”, but isn’t that only for posts?
Oh sorry, I misunderstood. You can use "Speak as moderator" and I believe this pins a comment for the Lemmy website, but may have sporadic app support.
I don't have that alt text field for post images on Boost, will check the web UI.
And yes, I can speak as moderator, but I can't pin other people's comments.
I don’t have that alt text field for post images on Boost, will check the web UI.
In the web UI it's between the language and the community, not even next to the image. Not great or obvious but it's there once you upload an image.
And yes, I can speak as moderator, but I can’t pin other people’s comments.
Sorry, I misunderstood again! No, I don't think you can pin other people's comments in Lemmy (or PieFed, as far as I can tell).