I love coming to this place not least because, as Hamlet said, it’s ‘Words, words, words’. The power of plain words made manifest. The page does not constantly blink multifarious colors at me, no furiously animated gifs run rampant across my field of vision. In short nothing distracts me from the posts themselves and the arguments they convey. If more is required then more can be supplied in the form of a non-obtrusive link, to be followed or not as the reader desires. And here is the nub of it: on this site we are readers, on many other sites viewers. Long may the SDMB continue to prioritize words
I have to admit that I find it strange that having to have no gifs or colours or anything other than plain words is somehow a remarkably good thing about the board and those who prefer it that way.
I personally can focus and discuss matters even with the looming horror of avatars. If someone can’t, or finds that hard, I’m not certain why that speaks to their ability to focus on the details of a post. Surely the opposite is true? If the styling of something like Facebook (I’m sorry, FaceTwit) rends you utterly incapable of reading for comprehension, I’m not sure it’s the short-attention-span, flashing-lights-attracted kids that are the ones with the problem.
But hey - there’s never going to be a change. So why worry?
And of course the very first post after mine brings out the old cliches anyway…
:rolleyes:
What?! I can’t hear you! Not with all these colored buttons, bars, borders, smilies, hyperlinks and favicons in my eyes!
I find it interesting, although not surprising, how much even the slightest intimation of change brings out the fear, loathing, vehemence, and absolutism in some.
There are, and will always continue to be, good ideas outside of vBulletin 3.x. My worry, as a longtime visitor, is that the SDMB may not be able to take advantage of or even experiment with them. This technological stagnation (highly cultivated though it is) may eventually affect the real-world business value of the forum, and, to our collective chagrin, we may find out how little the Business values our opinions regarding the status quo. We’re still just a line item on a balance sheet, correct?
If so, I think the questions I initially raised should be of interest to the community at regular intervals.
Hey, don’t let things like reason get in the way of the wringing of hands and the bitting of nails. Somebody else could use a pink unicorn as an avatar that you could shut off, then what? THEN WHAT?!
Reading this reminds me of a thread discussing potential changes to baseball, to make it “more modern” or “hip”. Let’s always evolve!
Some people love to change and tweak things, to make it their own. Or, to (in their mind) make it better.
Others prefer to stick with what works, and value stability, sameness, and consistency.
For me, this board is one of my favorite stops on the web. Because of the look and feel… the lack of avatars, and other things that seem to be everywhere else. I find this board to be set up to facilitate information exchange better than most, which is why I keep coming back.
If they ever change it, I would probably do whatever I had to to keep it looking and working as it does now.
Is it perfect? Of course not. But few things are.
But then again, I am a middle-aged white guy. (And I don’t want the DH in the national league, either!)
Given that avatars have always been talked of as opt-in, the thing you would have to do to keep the SDMB looking as it does now would be “nothing”.
I’m increasingly impressed by the amount of posters coming in here to speak against any change because it might harm the ability to better comprehend one another’s points who don’t seem to be interested in actually comprehending one another’s points.
The irony. It burns.
Maybe embedded charts and graphs are indeed necessary. Words don’t seem to be cutting it for those who venerate the written word as the end-all-be-all to communication.
I just don’t get what can be gained by having avatars. I hear you saying it’s easier to keep track of who’s who with avatars, but I belong to another board which has them and I do not find this to be true. People change their avatars (at least on that board) often, leaving me confused. Names do get changed occasionally but not at a whim and not often. I wonder, do those of you who say it’s easier to keep track of who’s who with pictures not remember the names of people in real life, just their faces? I don’t get it.
And I get tired of being told I’m hysterical about change just because I’m happy with things the way they are. If the concern is that from a business point of view we are not keeping up with the times, well, that’s been the case for the past ten or so years and we haven’t been fired yet. And since there is little the Dope could do without spending money, well, I suspect the powers that be are perfectly happy to indulge our little hobby as long as it doesn’t cost them anything more.
I’m still not sure why, when the default is “do absolutely nothing” and the board stays exactly the same for you, there’s concerns about what it is that others (orate software, natch) do. Like the mention of threaded reading, it’s a feature that’s offered that I bet many folks don’t utilize. But for however many that do, it affects the rest of us not one whit.
What an utterly alien mindset it is that tells people they can’t have something that you don’t want when it’s no skin off your nose in the first place.
And just as an aside… out of the couple of other boards that I’m on that has, say, avatars? I simply ignore them for the most part. Amazingly, if the place has good moderation (like we do here), they’re not the least bit intrusive or problematic.
However, I know that will never happen on the SDMB. But it’s always fun to speculate at the cause.
Television must be a horrorshow.
This is what the no avatar people like you don’t understand.
Me having avatars turned on means nothing for you changes.
You will not see avatars.
It is an opt-in option.
And we think we’re having problems communicating now? By jove, if I had a picture of a blue fish next to my name that you’d have to opt-in to see, then we’d have problems! It would be a wonder if anyone could read any part of my posts at all.
You. Do. Not. Have. To. Opt. In.
I love the irony of this. The haters keep saying that they don’t want avatars because they are readers and they prefer to understand posters words, yet they post over and over clearly not understanding that the board experience would not change for them unless they actively took steps to make it that way.
The Door of reasoning has been closed with the achievement of the perfect board at the revelation of the technology. It is bida3 to change.
Here’s what the board would look like with opt-in avatars.
I’m gonna throw the switch…
…are you ready
-CLICK-
Thoughts?
A tiny point, but Hamlet was dismissing the written word, not celebrating it:
Carry on.
Do conversations bore you? Are hardbound books incapable of holding your interest?
Yes, bells and whistles can be added onto pretty much any forum…and if you wanted to, you could make the letters in books glow in the dark to “enhance the experience”, or give people large rubber color-coded thumb extensions so that they “enhance” a conversation without having to actually participate in it.
Horror, hatred, fear? No, just my opinion that this board works pretty good at hosting conversations on pretty much every topic out there, just the way it is set up now. It someone could convince me(minus the histrionic name calling) how any one advancement could make the conversations here flow smoother, or make the board easier to work with. I’m open.
Wasn’t Hamlet mad?
Shakespeare certainly was. These… people… they took his beautiful words, words, words, and turned them into plays, with actors and even voices!
Hamlet’s really just a projection of the bard’s feelings.