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Per WP:ACCESS, we are supposed to endeavor to make Wikipedia more accessible for sight-impaired readers whenever possible. Per Wikipedia:Alternative text for images, that is supposed to include adding alternate descriptive text to all photos and other graphic images which is machine-readable for computer screen-readers. The "alt" parameter for this template has been a standard parameter since July 2007 (two days after it was created), and is supposed to be included every time this template is added to an NFL player or coach article. Recently, I have actually found several editors removing the "alt" parameter from NFL bio articles. That needs to stop, and we need to have a discussion on the WP:NFL talk page in order to familiarize all of our regular NFL and CFB editors with it and its purpose. That said, the "alt" parameter needs to added or restored to all instances of this infobox as part of our clean-up, and we need to encourage our NFL and CFB editors to actually use it.Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:46, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
While the alt text should be used, I have (in all of my TFD/template editing/etc) seen maybe ten articles use it in the infobox. If alt=This it what the image shows is deleted it should most definitely be restored, but if you think changing the params for 16000 articles is a pain try going through and (manually) adding alt text for every image. Yikes. Primefac (talk) 06:19, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
I'm in agreement that alt text should be added for every article. In fact, in the course of cleaning up some of the articles that use the NFL coach template, I added alt text for a decent number of articles. I also agree that any removal of alt text from articles should be reverted and that editors should be encouraged to add alt text any time they add or change an image. I'm also not opposed if someone wants to undertake an effort to add alt text to any article where it is missing (it would be simple to create a category that identifies such articles). However, I would vehemently oppose any suggestion that fixing the alt issue needs to be a requirement for wrapping up the ongoing infobox merge discussion as it really is a separate issue. — DeeJayK (talk) 16:28, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Can we create a tracking category for all instances of Infobox NFL player that do not include the "alt" text parameter? The underlying problem can be partly addressed by adding a hidden text message when the parameter is unused (i.e., please do not remove "alt=" per WP:ACCESS, etc.), but also by better explaining the purpose and use of the parameter in the template instructions/documentation, initiating a discussion at the WP:NFL and WP:CFB talk pages, maintaining the tracking category after our clean-up is complete, and lastly by gently slapping the hand of editors who we discover are deleting the parameter. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:16, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for doing that, DJ. The numbers are not surprising. Few CFB and NFL editors know what the purpose of the parameter is, and it is incumbent upon us to spread the word. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:48, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure this issue isn't isolated to football articles — I would guess that the prevalence of alt text on images is roughly similar across the entire encyclopedia. But you're certainly correct that it is primarily an education issue. The documentation of the infobox seems pretty clear on the use of alt, stating "[i]f an image is used, alt should describe the visual appearance of the image for visually impaired readers; see WP:ALT." I'm not really sure how to make that instruction more plain. I have made one tweak to the template to populate the alt with "refer to caption" in cases where alt is missing but caption is populated. As such, I've changed the Category:Infobox NFL player article missing alt text category to include articles that are missing alt but have a caption to refer to, and created a new category, Category:Infobox NFL player article missing alt text and caption to capture articles that are missing both alt and caption. I would suggest that you focus your clean-up efforts first on this last category. — DeeJayK (talk) 16:07, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
I added captions and alt text to a half dozen or so former Florida Gators who were in the "no captions/no alt text" tracking category. More importantly, I will start a discussion on the WP:NFL talk page this week explaining the purpose of alt text, and use those edits to the former Gators as linked examples so I can show WP:NFL editors how the alt text parameter is supposed to be used. There remains a lot of clean-up to be done on conforming parameter names, removing deprecated parameters, etc., and a lot of that can be done by bot. I'm keeping a list and will submit it to one of the better bot guys when we're done with the pending merge: when the clean-up is completed, there should be only one parameter name for every parameter, all standard parameters should be included on every template (not limited to alt text), and all of the deprecated/non-functional parameters should be removed from every instance. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:05, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
