Charts are one I've wondered about, do I need to try to describe the trend of the data, or provide several conclusions that a person seeing the chart might draw?
Just saying "It's a chart" doesn't feel like it'd be useful to someone who can't see the chart. But if the other text on the page talks about the chart, then maybe identifying it as the chart is enough?
It depends on the context. What do you want to say? How much of it is said in the text? Can the content of the image be inferred from the text part? Even in the best scenario though, giving a summary of the image in the alt text / caption could be immensely useful and include the reader in your thought process.
What are you trying to point out with your graph in general? Write that basically. Usually graphs are added for some purpose, and assuming it's not purposefully misleading, verbalizing the purpose usually works well.
I might be an unusual case, but when I present graphs/charts it's not usually because I'm trying to point something out. It's usually a "here's some data, what conclusions do you draw from this?" and hopefully a discussion will follow. Example from recently: "Here is a recent survey of adults in the US and their religious identification, church attendance levels, self-reported "spirituality" level, etc. What do you think is happening?"
Would love to hear a good example of alt text for something like that where the data isn't necessarily clear and I also don't want to do any interpreting of the data lest I influence the person's opinion.
Yeah, I think I misunderstood the context. I understood/assumed it to be for an article/post you're writing, where you have something you want to say in general/some point of what you're writing. But based on what you wrote now, it seems to be more about how to caption an image you're sending to a blind person in a conversation/discussion of some sort.
I guess at that point it'd be easier for them if you just share the data itself, rather than anything generated by the data, especially if there is nothing you want to point out.
An image is the wrong way to convey something like that to a blind person. As written in one of my other comments, give the data in a table format or a custom widget that could be explored.
Yep, in fafs in 2021. Pew 2015: 8th. gsod 2023: 28th.
On all of the freedoms, USA tends to do best on freedom of speech. But how can you say such, when the press has less freedom than in other rich West countries? Isn't that counter interactive?
> There's a good reason why on every half-serious index about freedom of speech or freedom of press, the best countries are Scandinavian and Switzerland, followed by West-Europe. And that data is from before the current orangutan is in office.
The Democracy Index is by The Economist [1]. The USA was #28 there (2024), well below Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, and well below Germany, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and various others. That's from 2024, before Trump's attack on the US democracy.
World Press Freedom Index by Reports Without Borders [2]. The USA is #57 in this list (2025), in the yellow color ('problematic').
Also, take note that both of these values are world-wide under threat, and the USA is part of being under this threat.
You also wrote in your previous post:
> By one of your own references USA is in the top 3 for freedom of speech.
But that one has incomplete data. It lacks data from like half the world. Finland, Iceland, The Netherlands, Switzerland (each countries doing well on every other index) aren't included.
> I didn't say it, your sources did.
Yeah, they couldn't know your country would be nearing a constitutional crisis by end of 2025.
Do you think any CEOs of gigantic corporations are personally liable for any loans made by the companies they work for? I would be incredibly, incredibly surprised to hear if that's the case.
Why would the CEO have the personal liability here and not the board? Does Sundar Pichai have to personally guarantee loans for Google? That would be weird since the CEO could be fired.
That was an illuminating question. Thank you. I see my parent's point now because no, I don't think that disagreement requires what amounts to censure if it makes it harder for something to be seen.
At the point where tensions rise beyond polite disagreement, HN ceases to be a functional social space and turns into a game of "who can make the other's opinions disappear first."
Doing so is technically against the rules, but either the moderators don't care, aren't doing it on a large enough scale to be an effective deterrent, or are knowingly complicit.
Ironically, it seems the descriptions are AI-written?
(minor spoiler)
The text accompanying an image of a painting:
> This image shows authentic human photography with natural imperfections, consistent lighting, and realistic proportions that indicate genuine capture rather than artificial generation.
Meindert Hobbema. The Avenue at Middelharnis (1689, National Gallery, London)
What bugs me the most about nearly everyone selling AI products is that they apparently want or need to believe in the power of LLMs for everything, not just the product, and this means that they also generate the explanatory texts and descriptions and readmes and... it makes the product itself feel of a much worse quality.
I don't mind that you're selling an AI product if it's good but at least put some humanity on the marketing side.
I was just thinking this. The wikipedia "signs of ai writing" that another commenter linked to (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing) mentions LLMs overuse the 'rule of three' (e.g. natural imperfections, consistent lighting, and realistic proportions), haha.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USSTHPI