Is it acceptable to transcribe images?

Question

More often than I'd like, I see screenshots of terminal emulators while browsing through the newest questions and the "First Posts" review queue. If, given the context of the post, it is clear that the screenshot is posted for its textual content rather than its appearance, I generally edit the post to instead contain a transcription of said screenshot.¹

After doing so, I tend to leave a comment along the lines of:

Please don't post images of text. I have transcribed the contents for you, but you may want to check for errors in transcription.

I have received thanks from one or two posters for this, and nobody has yet seemed opposed to the practice, but I would like a broader opinion — is image transcription in and of itself a valid reason to edit a post?

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¹ Often the edit involves grammar fixes and other formatting changes as well, but that is not the point of my question

Answer 1

Absolutely. Yes indeedy. Thank you kindly. Editing a post to convert a non-editable image into malleable text is very helpful. Even if all the edit does is transcribe, it is absolutely a helpful edit.

So yes, please keep doing that and thank you for taking the time to do so!

Answer 2

Acceptable? Sure, why not, it makes the question easier to read, search and use.

Should you be expected to spend your time on that? I don't think so. The original asker is quite likely to already have the relevant data in text, so it's much easier for them to copy and paste the text to the question. Transcribing takes time and is prone to errors.

And should you do it even if not expected? In my not so humble opinion, maybe no. It makes crap questions seem more acceptable and enables users who don't spend the little time of formatting their questions, instead of helping them learn to write better questions themselves.

That said, the "How to ask" document in the help doesn't seem to contain a note about preferring text over images, so I don't know where new users are expected to see that advice and the reasoning for it.

Answer 3

From @terdon's answer:

Editing a post to convert a non-editable image into malleable text is very helpful

I found it interesting just how different the policy here on U&L is from that of Stack Overflow. And based on the kerfuffle in this question (now deleted - Meta post here), I'm wondering if this is really such a good idea?

While simple error messages can typically be accurately transcribed (to aid in searchability), the above SO Meta post goes into reasons why its a bad idea for other users to transcribe data/code images.

The main takeaways:

• Transcription can introduce errors (or even correct errors that were present in the original data).
• Transcription can make assumptions about the data that may not be valid (e.g. in the question that sparked this, transcribing a grid image to a CSV file).

The Stack Overflow community feels so strongly about this that several of the audit questions for the Edit review queue are image-transcription-edits. I've seen multiple meta-posts from users who have been suspended from the edit queue for a period of time for approving a transcription!

Personally, I fall on the side of the Stack Overflow community consensus -- Ask the OP to provide the original data. They can best copy it as text and paste an accurate representation.

It should be noted that new users (less than 20 rep, I believe), receive a warning message when inserting an image into their question through the toolbar:

Images are useful in a post, but make sure the post is still clear without them. If you post images of code or error messages, copy and paste or type the actual code or message into the post directly.

I usually try to be quite sympathetic to issues in users' posts (and correct them as I can), but when they willfully ignore this warning and post an image-only (when text is available), I believe we should ask them to fix the issue before providing an answer. It's the best way to ensure that the text is an accurate and faithful representation of the problem.

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Side-note regarding @terdon's answer:

Editing a post to convert a non-editable image into malleable text is very helpful

At the very least, I'd recommend appending something like "as long as the edit accurately reproduces the original text, code, or data". However, I don't feel that I can make that edit myself as it changes the meaning of the post.

Answer 4

Analogy:

It is as acceptable as it is for mother to cut your meat. It is necessary in some cases: when the person is unable to cut their own meat, often due to lack of skill. Outside of this case, mother is often just overbearing.

Answer 5

Making the text within that image non-searchable might have been the exact intention. It could be real world data used to demonstrate a problem which, while not confidential, the asker does not wish to have indexed and screenscraped everywhere.