Oh, that’s kinda shady. I just thought that a bunch of new people were choosing to use avatars. Pulling avatars from things people have chosen to associate with their SDMB identity (nouilles, profile pictures) is pretty neat. Pulling avatars from the web at random is pretty not.
Look, Crazyhorse. I think the fact that you made a script to trawl the web for avatars is *really *freaking awesome. In the words of Syndrome, I’m still geekin’ out about it! But this is the kind of thing a geek should quietly distribute amongst their friends, not make available to the general public. It’s absolutely true that nobody cares what *you *display on *your *computer monitor. But anybody would care that 1000 people have the same unflattering thing about them on ALL of their monitors. I’m among the staunchest pro-avatarites on the SDMB, and I believe you should remove this feature.
This was an awesome post (not that you care what I think). You should do serious things more often. :o
This is the way it should be. However, this thread is evidence that it’s not the way it is. The OP of this thread doesn’t use avatars and doesn’t wish to have one assigned, and yet has one anyway.
Uh, no, I was ambivalent about them, but I was planning to get one of my own to start the new Mayan era. :), I was however cool with the one the script got for me.
(Incidentally, right now, I did add an avatar to my SDMB profile, but the script is not showing it.)
Yet no one can see it unless they choose to employ a third party program that they use on their own computer in the privacy of their own home for their own personal use and reasons.
I have a pretty good idea why you are so against this. Why not just use Jragons solution?
Each avatar that was selected was something they chose to associate with their SDMB profile. The noilles gallery is only about 400 images out of some 1200 that have been either directly linked by posters here or shared through their profile. Every image that was selected as a default for a user was based on a specific link to something specifically shared with the SDMB.
Like I said upthread - do a few google searches yourself for things like “SDMB Photobucket”, “SDMB Imageshack” “SDMB 'here’s a picture of me’” “Dopefest pictures”, etc. These are all images that were self-identified by those posters, shared with the SDMB and internet at large willingly and are currently available to the entire world with the click of a button.
Like I also said upthread, none of the images were unflattering and the feature is already disabled pending modification to make it optional if it comes back at all.
This is an interesting issue that isn’t as black and white as your post attempts to paint it.
It’s one of those things that seems to morph as the size of the audience grows. Kind of like a person spreading rumors among a small group of people, not a big deal, but post it on the front of a newspaper and the situation seems to change.
No they were just curious how their avatar from another board wound up being their avatar here without their input, and the answer was a new feature found it, probably by searching google for "SDMB [their username] and it wound up finding an image they use at another site under the same name where apparently the SDMB was mentioned and made the connection. Their reply was “Cool”.
All the objections so far (except for Rachellelogram who I think may have posted before she had a clear idea of the precise details) have, as usual, been raised only by those who don’t have any interest in avatars. It’s a strange phenomenon around here that has persisted for many years.
It is entirely different. Previous threads on avatars have been variations of “Barbarians at the gate!” The objection here is one of courtesy and responsibility, ie, that it’s not the non-avatar folks responsibility to ensure their profile is not being associated with a picture they may not want. And as a user of the script, much of my enjoyment comes from knowing the user selected an image that they found speaks to them.
I don’t think it’s discourteous or irresponsible toward the poster that has an avatar selected. But I agree 100% with you about it being presumptuous of me to automatically share my custom avatar choices with everyone else if they don’t want to see them. Therefore the feature has been discarded, perhaps to return another day as an optional setting.
MoL, Vinyl, Inner, Rachel and myself all have avatars.
In any case, I don’t think it’s this big ethical issue or anything, I just don’t think it’s a good idea. The script you made that looks for pictures that it thinks are of a given poster is pretty legit but I prefer seeing things they uploaded in relation to the site (either by uploading it to a Doper gallery like Arnold’s or by picking an actual avatar).
Why do you have an avatar? On sites where I use avatars, then I pick one to fit the style of the community, express something about what I like, or think is amusing, or make an in joke. I would probably never use a photo of me. That seems boring and weirdly over-personal to me. An avatar that I pick is part of the way I represent my identity on a message board, like a sig, or typing in a certain way. I dont want anyone else to choose that for me. Its like having someone else pick out my clothes.
If someone picks an avatar to display just on their screen, I dont care because they know that they picked it, and its not a statement from me. If Crazyhorses avatars carry a disclaimer of: this avatar chosen by Crazyhorse (via script, potentially), then that is also fine with me. I dont like him choosing my avatar and then displaying it like I chose it. Its like him putting my name on his posts or something.
Idea: script options/versions chosen per user via avatar keywords so users can choose if they want to see auto assigned or not
The initial script functionality:
SDMB Avatar: …
The new and improved script functionality that assigns avatars automatically if none:
SDMB Avatar2: …
A fun one with a new random images every time (as this one has not been written, please consider this the official request REQ0172935):
SDMB Avatar3: …
True. I meant objections beyond those of just ‘I would personally rather see…’
This keeps coming up so I want to mention again if it is posted here in a picture thread, Dopefest gallery, etc. it *was *uploaded in relation to the boards and advertised in threads that were created with the intention of sharing images with the SDMB, specifically. Before avatars were possible here that’s the way visually oriented folks rolled.
Very few that I saw came from anywhere else besides those threads - we probably heard about every exception to that existed here in this thread.
Believe it or not this one has been written. I have a copy I made to do that for my own entertainment but it would require some changes before I could share it because its hacked together for my own testing. But that might wind up as an option someday.
You should post feature requests in the script thread. There are a few avatar users with better scripting skills than me who might toss down some ideas you could paste into your own copy in the meantime.
I know it’s because I’m a huge a-hole, but I think this whole thing is hilarious. A bunch of people on this board were strongly against turning on avatars for absolutely no discernible reason whatsoever, the staff concurred, and avatars have remained off. So the people who want to see little pictures next to people’s names farmed the job out to some random dude. And guess what? Now that random dude has an inordinate amount of control over how a bunch of people view this message board! Control you all gave him when you argued against letting people use the built in functions of the board to display little pictures next their names. Aren’t you glad? You’re certainly better off than you would have been if people were enable to turn avatars on in their UserCP, that would have been a total nightmare.
