It appears the powers-that–be will be updating the board software soon. Personally, I’d love to see avatars employed. I find it to be a great way to identify and remember other posters than by just their username alone. It’s also a nice little way to attach some personality and say a little something about yourself. But I’ve seen other users lament their existence. Why is this? Is it merely bandwidth, or do you find them ugly and or of little use?
Good goddess no. Those things are generally ugly and a waste of space.
I think it would be nice, as I can never remember who’s who (though I also don’t really care). However, some douche will post a swastika or aborted fetus or something and reprimanded and then play dumb and get yelled at more and they’ll yell back and be defended by some other douches and some giant board drama will explode all over the place and there’ll be two 9-page pit threads and 4 more in ATMB and some ever bigger douche will threaten to sue and then we’ll lose avatars forever, so why not save the energy and skip it altogether?
[The above is slightly exaggerated.]
[Slightly.]
I’d really prefer not.
I like the interface of the board. It’s simple. Without a lot of the visual noise you get on other websites. The same reason I’ll keep paying even (if) when we go free-to-post. I just don’t like flashy flickery things all over the place. Plus then if a hotlinked image is removed (when the poster leaves or whatever) you end up with those horrible red x’s everywhere.
Nay.
I can’t even come up with a User Name; how could I find a decent avatar?
Besides, they take up a lot of page space for bland little one line answer.
You must be a visual person.
I think I am too, but still, I personally find avatars to be one of the most annoying things on the planet. I’d rather see a name in print. Avatars are the number one reason I don’t use any other message board than this one (and shell up the $15.00–well, actually it’s because people here are actually intelligent.)
I don’t want to see some “cute” picture you want to show the world, unless it’s actually YOU. Even then, I don’t really see the point for myself.
However, if it really helps you identify posters, I can understand that. There should be a way to turn them on and off.
I imagine if they were enabled here, they’d be 100x100, tops, and non-animated. Posts already take up about 100 pixels anyway, so I doubt that’d be a problem.
Nay, nay, a thousand times nay!
Yes, subject to three conditions:
[ol]
[li]Avatars are small and not animated. We don’t want them to interfere with the visual style of the boards too much.[/li][li]Avatar changes are subject to the same process as username changes. Having posters change their avatars like their socks will not help the rest of us in remembering who’s who.[/li][li]The onus will be on the member to prove that their avatar is legally OK to be displayed. We’ve always been big fans of IP laws here, and there’s no reason to change now.[/li][/ol]
No way.
No need for them, they take up space. I like the clean and simple look of this board.
And the whole douchebag war scenario Troy McClure stated.
Bad idea.
My gut instinct has always been “no avatars”. I’ve seen boards that (ab)use them, and decided they do nothing but uglify the place.
Then we started playing Mafia on an off-board site that utilized them, and I realized that I kept up with who was posting what much easier than I do here. So as long as they were kept small and non-animated, then yeah, I could get behind the idea.
Nooo!! I appreciate the lack of visual distraction here.
No.
I vote no. It looks obnoxious, causes problem loading the pages and takes up way too much space for short answer posts. I especially hate animated avatars.
No. No visual pollution please. It’s nice that only a couple small non animated smilies need to be seen. I don’t need to have 3 inch pictures of actors that people think they look like on every post. I hate to think of the animated goat humping .gifs that will surely show up.
Moved from IMHO to ATMB.
Wouldn’t there be a way for users to shut off Avatars if they thought them ugly and distracting?
And I agree, no animated gifs!
That’s an understatement. 
- They can be turned off, has already been suggested.
I’d add, 5. There isn’t a blank space left announcing “this poster hasn’t loaded an avatar here”.
I’m mostly not interested in them. I come here for the text.
I am a visual person and I would remember avatars better than plain names (probably), but the many cons outweigh this one pro.
I’d say no.
However, if the consensus of the teeming millions is that they want them, then please OG keep them limited as described by ultrafilter. The last thing we want is to have every thread lit up like a christmas tree in heat.