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Admittedly it's uncommon - with maybe 5-6 incidences a month of meta of folks posting a selfie or 3 for no apparent reason, either as a question or an answer. There's no other text on these posts, and it feels like posts that are generally 'just' a link or image are unlikely to be of any quality.

Could we have a block on posts that only consist of images, and as an extension to that links?

Improve this question
9
  • Is this perhaps a site-specific setting? My broken image repairer script regularly fails to edit a post on Stack Overflow because it consists of barely more than an image, and the API returns something like 'Body must be 30 characters; you only entered 15'.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 10:10
  • @Glorfindel that is a thing. Try to create a post with only an image and watch how it won't save your draft either. Only after you add some text a draft gets saved and created.
    – rene
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 10:15
  • That might potentially explain why that's a problem here and not elsewhere
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 10:16
  • 1
    meta.stackexchange.com/a/195927/369802 < There is indeed a difference, it seems. I can see one problem with that: Swag contests/Winterbash fun might be harder for the community to participate in if that setting is turned on for MSE.
    – Tinkeringbell Mod
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 10:22
  • an alternate might be to add meta to this list but ehhhh I'll leave implementation details to the folks that work here ;)
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 10:24
  • 5
    Puzzling is another site where an image-only post may be ok
    – Laurel
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 11:22
  • The counter argument is that would having something, anything make the post better?
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 21:15
  • 1
    Isn't there a 30 character quota for post body? Image only posts should be caught by it because they don't count toward the quota. Unless you mean you also want to block stuff like "try the stuff in this picture."
    – user805262
    Commented Apr 12, 2021 at 23:11
  • 2
    Gonna status-declined this for now, given the low-volume you mentioned, but please retag it as [status-review] if you see an uptick in these. In the meantime, we'll look into guiding new users not to post image-only and link-only posts as part of onboarding (not exactly your main source of concern, but something we should address anyway).
    – JNat StaffMod
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 13:35

1 Answer 1

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-20

In some rare cases, an image may suffice to answer the question. Therefore we shouldn't prevent answers from only containing an image.

Example 1:

Question: What is the meaning of all those letters and numbers in road names in Spain?

Answer:

enter image description here

Example 2:

Question: Which DIY mask is most effective for COVID-19?

Answer:

enter image description here

Improve this answer
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  • 25
    Not my downvote, but those images are utterly worthless for visually impaired users.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 21:04
  • @Glorfindel use ocr and other advanced screen readers.
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 21:05
  • 8
    i mean, the first one i can hardly read
    – Kevin B
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 21:13
  • @user400654 click on it to zoom?
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 21:17
  • 1
    @FranckDernoncourt that takes me away from the question
    – Kevin B
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 21:17
  • Is the benefit of merging rows in the first example really worth the impact on accessibility and styling? (images can't support light and dark modes on SO)
    – user1937198
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 21:17
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    @FranckDernoncourt "Get a flying wheelchair" is a bad argument to a wheelchair-bound person whose building doesn't have elevators.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 21:17
  • @user400654 imagine a smaller / more complex table then. Those are just examples.
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 21:18
  • 4
    i'd rather not imagine scenarios in which i am wrong
    – Kevin B
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 21:19
  • @SonictheCuriouserHedgehog ocr is not a flying wheelchair.
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 21:19
  • @FranckDernoncourt Also, what about SEO? Search engines can't read the contents of images.
    – user1937198
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 21:21
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    Even disregarding the accessibility issue, there are two things going against your argument. First, a lot of my participation years ago was from environments where Imgur was blocked, so I could not see any images in posts that were uploaded with the built-in editor. Second, it is still better form to have a basic description of the image before the image, such as "the following table outlines Spanish road numbers" or "this graph illustrates that [x] mask is best".
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 21:23
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    @FranckDernoncourt If OCR is good enough that stackexange can use it for SEO, then you can use it to convert your post to not be an image, but that OCRed output. So why do we need the image but not the converted text?
    – user1937198
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 21:29
  • 3
    This is all besides the fact that OCR is a really overkill substitute for writing a quick "this picture shows x".
    – zcoop98
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 21:58
  • 15
    "An image is sufficient as an answer, if everybody else bends over backwards to work with the image. Also, I don't care about anybody else." Great debate. 10/10
    – VLAZ
    Commented Apr 9, 2021 at 5:52

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