Would be nice to be able to choose our own avatars for the narcissic in us :P

P.S. Could use the specify url feature so the user would host his own image to avoid taking some disk space on your severs...

new-forums-custom-avatars

It's under consideration. We're unsure of whether or not we want to support avatars at all, as they tend to clutter up the look of a board (although some of you may respond that this would be difficult as it already looks cluttered as it is). Another problem with loading URLs from another site is that A. that site and image might not be there for as long as that user's posts are available from this site, resulting in a broken image and B. some browsers have security settings that won't load images if they're hosted on another site.

Personally, I'm torn. I kind of like them, but on the other hand, I'd rather this site not look like a 9-year-old girl's Trapper Keeper. It is this line of reasoning that led us to remove the "FUDcode" and "Smilies" options.

On Jan 15, 2006, at 8:57 PM, wallace winfrey wrote:

> It's under consideration. We're unsure of whether or not we want to 

> support avatars at all, as they tend to clutter up the look of a board

The argument in favor of avatars is the same argument in favor of 

icons. Avatars allow you to visually inspect a page quickly for posts 

from a certain person rather than reading the name of the user of 

every post. Think about how the Dock in OS X would work if every icon 

were replaced with a name. It should be much more tedious and time 

consuming to find what you're looking for.

> It is this line of reasoning that led us to remove the "FUDcode" 

    "Do not display emoticons as images."

That said, I'd prefer sane defaults (do NOT show emoticons as 

images), but leave the ultimate decision up to the user.

> It's under consideration. We're unsure of whether or not we want to  
> support avatars at all, as they tend to clutter up the look of a board

The argument in favor of avatars is the same argument in favor of  
icons. Avatars allow you to visually inspect a page quickly for posts  
from a certain person rather than reading the name of the user of  
every post. Think about how the Dock in OS X would work if every icon  
were replaced with a name. It should be much more tedious and time  
consuming to find what you're looking for.

This should be a user setting:
	"Show Avatars."
	"Do not show avatars."

> It is this line of reasoning that led us to remove the "FUDcode"  
> and "Smilies" options.

This should also be a user setting:
	"Display emoticons as images"
	"Do not display emoticons as images."

That said, I'd prefer sane defaults (do NOT show emoticons as  
images), but leave the ultimate decision up to the user.

On around Jan 16, 2006, at 2:57, wallace winfrey said something like:

I said this before the new list went public, but I'll say it again for 

the benefit (?) of everyone now. My vote was:

They make the online forum look like a discussion of which Barbie doll 

| Litter Power & Litter Bundle for Jitter

pcastine@bek.no | iCE: Sequencing, Recording, and Interface Building

http://www.dspaudio.com/software/software.html

On around Jan 16, 2006, at 2:57, wallace winfrey said something like:
> It's under consideration. We're unsure of whether or not we want to 
> support avatars at all,

I said this before the new list went public, but I'll say it again for 
the benefit (?) of everyone now. My vote was:

They make the online forum look like a discussion of which Barbie doll 
people like.

Frankly, i agree with this. I got too much anime stars, little boys 

"funny" sex gifs and childish names like SupaKilla305, BlackThirteen, 

Bobby SixKilla or ImTheBossAndIFuckYa on my "NDS Hacking" forum ! On 

em411.com, it's not better... Are you sure this is a good idea to move 

Frankly, i agree with this. I got too much anime stars, little boys 
"funny" sex gifs and childish names like SupaKilla305, BlackThirteen, 
Bobby SixKilla or ImTheBossAndIFuckYa on my "NDS Hacking" forum ! On 
em411.com, it's not better... Are you sure this is a good idea to move 
to a "forum like" list ?

Avatars are fun! However I agree, they are abused and maybe shouldn't be visible in the posts. How about allowing avatars in Member profiles? That way if you're interested in someone's avatar, you just check out their profile.

Or just have an option to hide all avatars for people that don't want to see them, that would be nice.

Speaking strictly from my own experience in building a community online, the moment I allowed custom avatars, participation went way up. Many people like associating some personlized image with what they spend time saying.

However, as has been pointed out, it can get ugly. One thing that works well (in my opinion) is to limit the size of the custom avatar to 64x64 pixels. How bad can it be if it's the same size as everyone else's? The forums that really look bad are the ones where you can upload huge custom avatars.

Otherwise, having a preset list of 20 avatars to choose from is a poor compromise. Do you really need 100 people being the jitter cat? Why bother...

In my forums, I've supplied several thousand good-looking avatars in a variety of themes, all 64x64, and then allow custom avatars of the same size. It maintains a more uniform look while allowing people to have some individuality. You can check here if you're interested: [url]

PS: Also, I don't understand why FUDcode (presumably some sort of vB or BB Code) is turned off... No URLs?

In my forums, I've supplied several thousand good-looking avatars in a variety of themes, all 64x64, and then allow custom avatars of the same size. It maintains a more uniform look while allowing people to have some individuality. You can check here if you're interested: [url]http://www.karma-lab.com/forum[/url]

PS: Also, I don't understand why FUDcode (presumably some sort of vB or BB Code) is turned off...  No URLs?

- Stephen
KARMA Developer
www.karma-lab.com


New forums : custom avatars ?