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OTW Fannews: Exploring fair use
Fanworks are generally non-commerical but an ad usually isn't. So how can one be fair use or transformative? http://bit.ly/1a6RzJB
Fanworks are generally non-commerical but an ad usually isn't. So how can one be fair use or transformative? http://bit.ly/1a6RzJB
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Yes, we expect this to be the ongoing format. As the number of accounts we post to has grown, the complexity of posting to various platforms has also become more demanding. Communications has experimented in the past with some automated distribution methods but as platforms continue to change, manual posting was required at most sites.
Currently we post to anywhere from 8 to 11 sites per post, depending on the content (and have automated distribution to two more). LJ and DW have always posed the most difficulty of any of the social media platforms due to both formatting issues and unique footer content. Aside from the time and training demands this entails, redirects to a single site with the full content makes it easier to update when necessary (such as in the case of technical problems) and to provide official responses from other committees when needed.
Regardless of the post formats, readers can still contact us through any of our outlets or hold conversations on their "home" platforms. So while we realize this is a change for users of the LJ and DW mirror sites, we hope they will continue to utilize these outlets just as they have in the past.
Claudia Rebaza
Chair, OTW Communications
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Thanks, again!
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(Anonymous) 2014-01-04 05:09 pm (UTC)(link)Using the alt text property to take credit for images might be old fannish LJ practice, but it is not good web practice. Credit for the image creation can be in a caption on the page if everyone is meant to see it, right now only users of screen readers get to know who made the image, which seems a little odd if you think about it.
Even better, the artist can encode this info in the metadata for the image when it is made. There are many tutorials on the web on how to do this.
Link text should be meaningful. Sighted users and users of screen readers need to know where a link goes. A raw link from a URL shortening service is not that. It is often a signal that a spammer is trying to trick you and looks very bad on a post by a serious organization like the OTW.
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It's true that most of our banners are decorative only, usually including only the post title or series title as text. We realize that in standard practice there is thus no need for alt text for these graphics.
However, past feedback has told us that there are people who want to see the graphic explained regardless of the information level of its content. Since it's difficult to know how many people do vs. don't want to see the alt text, we defaulted to including it for all banners since it would be a judgment call in some cases as to what was or wasn't considered sufficiently informational.
Should we hear from more people that the alt text is unwelcome though, we could certainly discontinue including it.
In terms of the link text, our intention is to standardize the content across our mirrors. Although it is new to LJ and DW, this format has been used on our other sites for the past few years and so far it doesn't seem to be causing confusion in terms of connecting to the OTW website post being described. We can continue to evaluate this as well over the next few months.
Claudia Rebaza
Chair, OTW Communications
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1. Alt text: anon was suggesting that the alt text of images should provide useful info to users of screen readers. And if it does not, then it should not be used at all because the way OTW is using it right now isn't the correct practice.
2. URL: I agree with anon regarding the URL. I really hate it when OTW/AO3 use this kind of url in their posts because I have no idea what site is being linked and I'm very cautious about the sites I go to. I'd also really prefer it if you discontinued using URL shortening services.