I recently felt paralyzed by pressure to Be Perfect in the context of providing image descriptions. Talked it through with some people and got to a place where I no longer feel that pressure. Wanted to share the results of the discussion in case it helps other people so we can have more people doing image descriptions.
Trying to make our digital communities as accessible as possible is something we will have to do as a group effort, from the ground up. We cannot rely on companies to do it for us.
Image and video descriptions:
You don't have to describe every post you reblog; it's a group effort, we're not each individually responsible for righting every wrong on the planet.
But you can make a good faith effort to see if there's already an image description in the notes that you can reblog instead.
If you're the OP and someone does an image description for you, you can edit the original post to include it for the benefit of future reblogs - saves everyone a lot of trouble and shows your appreciation for the description.
If you're making an original post, you're better situated than anyone else to write an image or video description since you know what the most relevant aspects of the medium are.
Descriptions don't have to be perfect!
They don't have to follow some specific syntax guideline.
They don't have to describe every single detail of the image, just the important parts.
You can rely on context to do some of the work for you!
Is the image targeted at a specific audience or fandom? Take some knowledge as assumed/given and don't worry about describing that part (e.g. instead of "a sketch of Geralt, a middle aged man with white hair dressed in armor, riding a horse..." try "a sketch of Geralt looking fondly at Roach, whose mane has been braided by Ciri" - you don't have to give the whole backstory every time you describe an image)
If you see someone say that you *must* do x or y - first, ignore the "must". Then, take some time to think about how the change in action would benefit the community and how and whether you can accommodate the change. Then, try incorporating the change as best you can, without beating yourself up if you can't. Everyone has different limits on their ability to contribute to different parts of accessibility. The goal is to all pull in the same direction, towards a kinder, more inclusive digital space.
If you are a creator and feel frozen when attempting to describe your own work, some options for you might be: a) ask a friend to help, b) put out a post asking for help, c) check the accessibility tags for people offering to help, etc.
