What it looks like:

Here's an example of such a post: https://sh.itjust.works/post/58082125

They uploaded an image and then included a URL as the body/text.

On Lemmy, it looks like an image post, with a small expando to the right of the title that you can click to show the body:

Why you should stop doing it:

1. It makes high-quality posts look the same as low-quality ones.

I automatically downvote most image/meme submissions and posts with bad/non-descriptive titles for quality control. Linking directly to a source is how you make a high-quality submission. You can include screenshots or quotes in the body of the post.

1. I could start clicking the expando next to the title to check if a source was provided, but there's going to be a user option to block image posts in the next lemmy update (v0.20), so that format is not good since lots of people will start to automatically block them.

2. You can put images in the body of the posts.

Why should anyone care?

Low-quality, easy-to-digest content will dominate and drown out everything else if no one does anything to limit it. It degrades the internet and our brains.

A blog that elaborates:

The Cargo Cult of The Ennui Engine https://medium.com/@max.p.schlienger/the-cargo-cult-of-the-ennui-engine-890c541cebcb

Additionally, don't post text as an image. It's not searchable or accessible.

Low quality and easy to digest are orthogonal concerns. You can have high-quality posts that are easy to digest and low quality posts that are hard to digest. We shouldn’t make grocery bags heavier to increase the average person’s upper body strength, even if it would work.

It is if you add alt text, which makes the internet more accessible for everyone 👍

If you don't add alt text to your image/gif/video a ton of people on the Fediverse will miss out on your post

This is a strawman. I didn't claim otherwise.

Another point to consider is to avoid wasting storage space unnecessarily.

Yep, that's another good reason I missed.

Could you elaborate?

So, there are many people on Mastodon that will ignore any image/gif/video post that doesn't have alt text, in support of accessibility. There's also the people who need the alt text to be able to interact with those kinds of posts

🤓

It's not a strawman, it's an analogy my guy

You should look up the definition of those words.

Mate! It was you who commented something to this effect on my post a while back! I'm trying to understand what you mean, I really am, but it's not going in. Could you humour me, and explain to me what it is about an image accompanying a text post that makes it bad? Is it that so very often when an image accompanies an article you've seen so many instances of it being low quality content that you're conditioned to assume the same even when it isn't the case?

While I agree with OPs general sentiment, your post is fine to me.

I think part of the problem is that Lemmy doesn’t allow for posts with both a link and an image.

Why does no one care about medium quality posts?

I really don't like links or images where the poster does not talk about it in the body. I want it to be like if we were in person. Hey guys I came across this article and I think its neat because of how it discusse X in a y manner or it goes in depth on Z which I always found interesting or something like that.

It's explained in the OP.

I feel that there's something you've implied in there that isn't explicit.

For instance:

It makes high-quality posts look the same as low-quality ones.

How does it do that?

that format is not good since lots of people will start to automatically block them

Why would they do that?

You're really going to have to dumb it down for me, and I might not be alone given the number of down votes this post, and your comments get when you mention it.

I've read your comments, I've read the post, and I honestly still don't understand the issue.

It makes high-quality posts look the same as low-quality ones.

How does it do that?

It did answer that; by making them look like image posts.

Why would they do that?

The OP already answered that.

You’re really going to have to dumb it down for me, and I might not be alone given the number of down votes this post, and your comments get when you mention it.

Yeah, it's pretty disturbing how many people are struggling to understand something fairly simple. But I'll reword it in another post in the future.