Silly item to report, and I know it is not controlled by the message board, but this is where threads on using that script to show avatars were posted so I hope others that use the script will report here.
I do not have an image assigned to my profile here on the dope, so the script usually showed me with no avatar, however just today I noticed I got Dogbert from the comic strip Dilbert as an avatar, the image is not in my profile here in the Straight Dope, but that image is however in my profile and handle in the Fathom message boards from Opal Cat that I only check for a death pool contest there.
Is the SDMB avatar script getting avatars from other sites that you go to? Is this only seen by me (if the image came from the script using the avatar from the computer cache) or by other users?
Yes, the script is pulling pictures from all around the internet. Examples of people who don’t use the avatar script but who I can see pictures of whenever they post: Mosier, Cat Whisperer, etc. Mosier and I spent a while trying to figure out where exactly it pulled his picture from. He determined they were from a family member’s Facebook.
You can right click an image in your window and choose “View Image” to go directly to wherever that image is actually hosted. I checked Mosier’s avatar and it’s hosted on blogspot.com not Facebook. This probably means something either in his SDMB profile or a post he has made here pointed the script to that blog.
Thank you Crazyhorse, I’m planning on making my own avatar and the script got ahead of me :), I like that avatar in Fathom but I’m looking for a change there too.
Its’ actually pretty cool how many images it found - I had to draw the line when I saw avatars appearing from the ‘Dopers NSFW Picture Thread’ and told it not to do that anymore. Personally I like Dogbert but when you have another just add it to your profile pic here, or the line “SDMB Avatar: [url to your avatar]” to your profile text and it will always use that.
Personally, I would prefer it if the script were more limited in how far afield it goes to find images. I know I can control which avatars show up for people but I’ve noticed a number of posters who have shirtless or near-nude photos being used as avatars and I think they’d be a little embarrassed to find out just how much the image has been broadcast. I realize they posted it on the internet to begin with but I don’t know that we need to hammer the point home quite so strongly.
At the very least, I strongly encourage anyone not using the script to run it just for a bit to make sure if it’s grabbed a photo for you, it’s a photo you’re ok with.
It isn’t hammering home a point - it’s just choosing something to display for posters that haven’t specified an avatar so those who do want to see avatars see something by default rather than nothing for almost every poster here.
This is usually based on a best guess from a direct link they have in their SDMB profile (e.g. a blog or website, etc.), an image link they shared with the dope in a public thread, or a google image search of their username.
It should be noted (and is hopefully already understood by most avatar users) the image that appears may not actually even be related to the poster. They are for entertainment purposes only. A default image for each poster just serves as a placeholder so an avatar appears more often than not for those who want to see them. If Poster A links to an image in a thread saying something like “here is a picture of me” and it actually was a joke where they linked to some other image, that image might become the default avatar. Likewise if they love the website “abc123.com” and link to it in their profile, an image from that site might be assigned even though they don’t run or post images to that website.
As mentioned I have seen a few that I thought were NSFW and manually edited them out of the system. Not so much in an effort to protect any incorrect assumptions about privacy by the poster, but just to avoid having a NSFW image displayed to script users by default. But by in large I have seen an astonishing number of cat photos, dopefests, cars, new shoes, etc. and very few shirtless or near-nude avatars.
There has been a lot of argument over this subject over the years so I really don’t want to spawn a new avatar debate thread. The script is available to anyone who wants to check it out and everyone interested is able to choose to have their own avatar or none at all. Those who have no interest in the script or seeing avatars don’t really need to be called out by those who do with comments about their default avatar - if you see one that isn’t pleasing to your eye, just assign something different or block that poster’s avatar completely.
That said, as of this writing there are about 1500 installations of the script out there and probably quite a few more who pasted the script to their browsers themselves without using the online installer. I’m not sure there are all that many active posters who aren’t already using it, but I too obviously encourage all to install it and check it out.
In that case, if it exists, it could serve as a cautionary tale about things one posts on the internet actually being visible to other people in many various contexts. But posting about it in a new thread is pretty much a sure way to make sure of that, isn’t it? The same argument could be made against google for caching the image in the first place, or the internet time machine for re-publishing things people posted 15 years ago, or sites like boardreader and others that keep internet postings archived forever, etc.
One early idea about assigning default avatars was to collect an assortment of nice, eye catching images and choose from them randomly as placeholders until that user assigned thier own. An improvement to that idea is to try to find an image that is hopefully in some way referenced by that poster as a self-identified relationship to them, their interests or personality. In most cases like I said this turns out to be a cat or a 1999 vacation picture, but maybe in some cases it is an image they would prefer they hadn’t posted on the internet. There is no way to take it off the internet, but taking it out of the avatar script is simple to do.
I’m just suggesting that as a kindness to non-script users, we not make the burden of checking for unwanted avatars their responsibility. I see no reason that the script can’t be limited to the profile text, member pic and arnold’s picture gallery with the assumption that anyone without a picture in any of those three areas does not want a picture associated with their username.
Yeah, I’m pleased as punch that it looks through the gallery but looking elsewhere seems off to me. Plus it means that when I see someone with an avatar I can’t tell if they’re a user of the script or if it just found something it thinks is theirs.
And the point is, that’s not an improvement, but an invasion of privacy. Dopers are really big about their privacy–when I created an avatar thread that grabbed images from the SDMB picture gallery, I got a ton people freaking out, and those were at least pictures they’d chosen to share with other Dopers. Not even I can get behind randomly grabbing pictures from other sites those Dopers use.
Seriously, this is an ethics violation, and needs to be fixed. And not just by letting people opt out–this is not an official Straight Doper Message Board function and someone should not need extra work to opt out of violating their privacy, especially since they’ve not assented to any agreement.
And if that doesn’t convince you, use of images from other sites without permission can get you in legal trouble. It’s even more likely you’ll run into when you’ve got people who may be pissed off by it. Especially in a place like this that seems to be full of lawyers.
Personally I like Dogbert but when you have another just add it to your profile pic here, or the line “SDMB Avatar: [url to your avatar]” to your profile text and it will always use that.