# Avatar not specified, but I get one in the grease monkey script **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [November 26, 2012, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155 "2012-11-26T14:53:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/201 "2012-11-29T06:32:25Z")
> [@kayT](#): > > \ \ > > One thing I think you are overlooking about some of our complaints is that the information I quoted above was not known to us or explained to us at the time the avatar script was first offered. If we knew what was going to happen we could have acted appropriately. But all we knew was the second sentence about not having to use avatars if we didn’t want to. We weren’t aware that if we didn’t want to have an avatar showing up automatically to others, we had to do something. ( And in fact, I get the idea now that in the beginning we didn’t have to do something in order to have no automatic avatar; that came later, right?) Well, Nobody Told Us. That’s the part I think maybe you are missing. Not how it works as much as how it was presented or explained. In the beginning… nobody had an avatar. And then the dawn came. When the script was first run by the first user, what they saw were any built-in vbulletin profile images people had in their user profiles, which are quite a few, and any avatar users who came on board and added a ‘SDMB Avatar:’ section to their profiles, plus any users to whom they assigned their own avatar which were often selected from the portrait gallery individually, and whatever other various places around the web. Then as more and more people started using it, there were more and more self-provided avatars and people’s individual custom avatar lists were growing as they added more images from the portrait gallery, Dopefest threads, picture threads, and anywhere else that images of dopers could be located here or elsewhere in the public domain. The next change to the script itself tried to facilitate this process by incorporating those types of images from all around the web right into the script so individual users didn’t need to do all the editing and pasting and web searching thousands of times among themselves when the script could just do it one time for everyone. There was never a time that I, for my own use of the script, intended for there to be active posters for whom I didn’t see an avatar, whether it was one they chose for themselves or one I chose to see in lieu of, or despite, their own selection. But because other script users pointed out they didn’t necessarily want to see avatars for posters that haven’t specified one just because I do, the idea was shelved at least for the moment to rethink the design, maybe to return as an option. So long story short there was never a promise to those not interested in avatars that they wouldn’t have an avatar that was visible to others, only that they didn’t need to see or care about avatars either way if they weren’t interested in them. It would never have occurred to anyone to inform them of specific ways they could avoid having other people see an avatar when they don’t use or care about avatars. And if they did, then they would have been informed on all the options from the thread where they learned how they could get the script. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/202 "2012-11-29T07:22:03Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > It was a surprise to realize that some old picture from ages ago, posted in one long buried thread (not the gallery) was being automatically broadcasted to all script users, as if I had chosen to put it out there. Obviously I know stuff thats out there remains out there, risking being seen. But a risk of it being seen shouldn’t become a certainty. If you didn’t want something to be seen, you shouldn’t have posted it on the internet to begin with. This is what kills me about the whole thing. Bandwidth (if it’s not at a site like photobucket, as is the case on **Arnold** ’s site – you should probably hold off until you get permission) But people screeching about how everyone is now seeing a picture that they, themselves, have posted online, get no sympathy from me. Again, once you post something on the internet, you have no control over it. It’s not like **Crazyhorse** is hacking into your Paypal account. He simply found something that YOU posted PUBLICALLY. That’s it. Don’t want something seen? Don’t post it. Period. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/203 "2012-11-29T07:22:18Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …when I ran the script I saw the image that IvoryTowerDenizen didn’t want used as her avatar as her avatar. She then had to go to her Flickr account to delete it. She didn’t delete it from your computer, she deleted it from the net. I saw the image on my computer, not yours. What you do to your own computer is irrelevant. What the script was doing was global and seen by any user of the script, including myself. Your statements are contradictory. On the one hand you say what happens on my computer is irrelevant and at the same time anyone running the script (my computer is running the script) is part of the problem. How can our actions on our computers be simultaneously irrelevant and problematic? (you do know that the script runs on our computers, right?) > [@](#): > > You can do whatever you like on your computer. But your computer isn’t assigning me an avatar pulled from a post I made nearly a decade ago and then broadcasting that image to every user of the script. True. Nobody’s computer is doing that. Each person is running a script on their own computer and on each person’s computer, their own personal version of the script is assigning avatars (in some cases). ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/204 "2012-11-29T07:37:03Z")
> [@kayT](#): > > We weren’t aware that if we didn’t want to have an avatar showing up automatically to others, we had to do something. ( And in fact, I get the idea now that in the beginning we didn’t have to do something in order to have no automatic avatar; that came later, right?) Well, Nobody Told Us. Out of curiosity, if I were to have a web page titled Pictures I Have Decided Are Correlated With Specific Straight Dope Message Board Members, which was simply a list of usernames and pictures which I’d found by looking through “post pictures of you” threads, profile pages, and Arnold’s gallery, would you object? ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/205 "2012-11-29T07:46:30Z")
> [@spinky](#): > > Out of curiosity, if I were to have a web page titled Pictures I Have Decided Are Correlated With Specific Straight Dope Message Board Members, which was simply a list of usernames and pictures which I’d found by looking through “post pictures of you” threads, profile pages, and Arnold’s gallery, would you object? I would immediately call the President of the Internet and tell him I am not going to vote for him again if he allows this to continue. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/206 "2012-11-29T08:28:44Z")
Crazyhorse, you are amazing. I applaud you. spinky, so how do I download that crayon script? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/207 "2012-11-29T08:35:58Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Bandwidth (if it’s not at a site like photobucket, as is the case on **Arnold** ’s site – you should probably hold off until you get permission). It’s worth noting here that out of approximately 1800 total avatars between built-in profiles, user selected avatars, and default selected avatars, only about 400 came from the image gallery. Out of those 400 a good number are actually inactive posters and won’t be causing any spikes to the avatar requests, and out of those remaining who are active, many are using the avatar system anyway, or have a profile picture uploaded here already, and their gallery image isn’t used as an avatar. That leaves a very small fraction of the entire system being directed to the gallery. At least 90-95% are on the three major image sharing sites. They are small images, and it is a publicly open server that is indexed by google and crawled by web archives. Normally one doesn’t need permission to link to an image on such a server and it certainly isn’t bandwidth theft, but I did PM and email Arnold to ask for his thoughts, and offered to link to the images in google’s cache or another web archive in case it would be any burden. He hasn’t replied, but the last time this whole thing came up and festered in an endless avatar thread it was before the script was completed to work a different way. After expressing some reservations about the system being proposed at the time, he concluded that it was OK with him if people wanted to use their gallery to host or link to avatars, he just wasn’t keen on it becoming the heart of an avatar system as was being proposed. Since then the avatar system was reworked not to rely on the gallery or any work or changes from Arnold. And in a few months there are 3x as many active avatar users as there are active gallery users. Many of them were already linking to the active gallery images anyway so it seems like an obvious choice that is better for both avatar users and the gallery server. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/208 "2012-11-29T08:51:38Z")
> [@PlainJain](#): > > Crazyhorse, you are amazing. I applaud you. > > spinky, so how do I download that crayon script? > 😃 If he makes mine the white crayon again I opt out. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/209 "2012-11-29T09:02:27Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > If he makes mine the white crayon again I opt out. Fine, but your going to have to insert the proper link in your profile. ---
**Author:** ![Weedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/weedy/32/301_2.png) [@Weedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weedy)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/210 "2012-11-29T09:31:46Z")
> [@spinky](#): > > Out of curiosity, if I were to have a web page titled Pictures I Have Decided Are Correlated With Specific Straight Dope Message Board Members, which was simply a list of usernames and pictures which I’d found by looking through “post pictures of you” threads, profile pages, and Arnold’s gallery, would you object? Out of curiosity? No, I wouldnt object. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/211 "2012-11-29T11:00:15Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > I wrote to Arnold (the admin of the gallery website) a couple of months ago via PM and then later by direct email, asking if he would prefer me not to link to them, or a different set, or use google’s or other web archive’s cached images instead. He hasn’t responded, and last time I looked hasn’'t been active here in almost a month. So without additional guidance I selected the smallest, lowest bandwidth versions of the portraits. I stumbled across this: > [@Greasemonkey script to add your own SDMB avatars](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greasemonkey-script-to-add-your-own-sdmb-avatars/598062/14): > > Remembering a fairly recent similar proposal, I (the gallery maintainer) would ask that this be implemented only for people in the gallery who consent to this type of use for their gallery photo. Did Arnold ever restate that opinion? If not, I guess you have your answer there: He doesn’t want you linking to people in his gallery if they haven’t expressly consented to this use. ---
**Author:** ![Ostrya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/35a633/32.png) [@Ostrya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ostrya)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/212 "2012-11-29T12:40:46Z")
Wow, thanks **Eliahna**. Would be great if **Arnold Wrinkleried** responded to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/213 "2012-11-29T13:16:46Z")
1000 apologies people, I haven’t had time to update the gallery in the past few months for personal reasons. I will be updating it this week-end for sure. I have many requests in my cue. Referring to Eliahna’s post: My opinion has not changed. Please do not use images from the SDMB portrait gallery ™ for avatar scripts. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/214 "2012-11-29T13:18:36Z")
I’ve only skimmed through this thread, but regarding the topic at hand, I seem to understand that the avatar script is doing Google searches to find a random picture (that Google thinks is related to the username) to assign as an avatar to someone? If that’s the case, I think that’s a bad idea. IMHO that feature should be removed. ---
**Author:** ![Cinnamon\_Imp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@Cinnamon\_Imp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinnamon_Imp)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/215 "2012-11-29T13:19:51Z")
Can somebody who uses the script tell me what avatar they see for me, please? I’ve tried to edit my bio in User CP so you just get a white square, but I suspect either the joke photo of me with a fake moustache or a wedding photo (I’m now divorced) has been showing up on people’s screens. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/216 "2012-11-29T13:51:03Z")
> [@spinky](#): > > Out of curiosity, if I were to have a web page titled Pictures I Have Decided Are Correlated With Specific Straight Dope Message Board Members, which was simply a list of usernames and pictures which I’d found by looking through “post pictures of you” threads, profile pages, and Arnold’s gallery, would you object? No objection. It would be obvious I hadn’t chosen it and it wouldn’t be associated with every post I made. Despite what some people assert, I don’t care that stuff I posted gets seen. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/217 "2012-11-29T14:15:17Z")
> [@Cinnamon\_Imp](#): > > Can somebody who uses the script tell me what avatar they see for me, please? > > I’ve tried to edit my bio in User CP so you just get a white square, but I suspect either the joke photo of me with a fake moustache or a wedding photo (I’m now divorced) has been showing up on people’s screens. ☹ Just a white square. Keep in mind that the script is back to only using ones that people have either chosen for the avatar system themselves or uploaded to the SDMB gallery. ---
**Author:** ![Cinnamon\_Imp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@Cinnamon\_Imp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinnamon_Imp)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/218 "2012-11-29T14:22:56Z")
Ah, thank you! ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/219 "2012-11-29T17:09:40Z")
> [@Eliahna](#): > > I stumbled across this: Stumbled? ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155/220 "2012-11-29T17:57:37Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > Just a white square. Keep in mind that the script is back to only using ones that people have either chosen for the avatar system themselves or uploaded to the SDMB gallery. I hope the script will soon be changed to not use pictures from the SDMB gallery. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avatar-not-specified-but-i-get-one-in-the-grease-monkey-script/642155.md?page=12)