Something just changed in several themes, so that avatars in those themes are cropped to a circle rather than a square. I’m using Straight Dope Light, but I tried some others, and some are cropping to a circle and some to a square.
Many people created their avatars to look good inside a square, not a circle. Is there a way to change this back, or get TPTB to do so?
You guys had squares?
I’m using Vincent and they’ve always been circles.
I noticed the same change – and am also using Straight Dope Light. It’s a little distracting!
It is disconcerting.
Its like looking at your avatar through a ship’s portal.
Who likes change?
I’ve also always seen circles. Huh.
I’ve often felt like I’m a square peg trying to fit in a round hole in life, but in this case I use the Straight Dope Dark theme which crops the avatars in a square. And in any case my avatar probably doesn’t look too bad in a circle. Been thinking about making a new avatar though, so this is good intel- I willl design one, if and when I get around to it, that works in a circle config.
The OP needs a torus-shaped avatar cropping theme 
Weird, I’ve known the issue for a long time, because when I read on my computer (Dark Theme) it’s always been circles, but when I’m on my Fire Tablet (not signed in, because I don’t really trust the Silk Browser) it’s always been square in the “default” appearance. I guess my brain had that segregated as “just one of those things” and tuned it out.
That is weird. You have the dark theme too, and you see circles? I view the SDMB primarily on a desktop PC in Firefox, and iOS Safari (iPad and iPhone) and I’ve only ever seen squares.
I have the “Dark” theme, not “Straight Dope Dark”. I find the semi-custom themes historically left me with more formatting issues, which are sometimes fixed and sometimes… less so. I’m also mostly using Chrome (again, on PC) which could always be yet another source of difference.
Ah yes, I just switched to ‘Dark’ from ‘Straight Dope Dark’ and am now seeing the circles.
Round Dope Dark?
Yes, just today or yesterday there was another software update, and the avatars in Straight Dope Light that used to be squares are now circles. WTF is the point of these arbitrary changes? It negatively affects some avatars but not others, but it doesn’t improve any of them! So why the change?
Count me also unimpressed with this useless tweak. I’m a Straight Dope Light user and on both phone & PC I find the round icons are a reduction in usability. Uggh!
Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel…
I think I’ve always seen circles; but to be honest I don’t pay that much attention to the shape of avatars.
Straight Dope Light.
Same here.
I’ve always been a square kinda guy.
The circle clipping wrecks mine.
The letters L are cut off at upper left and lower right. That looks wrong. They’re not cut off when my icon is left as a square.
If I’d known they were going to be clipped down into circles I’ve had left more margin around the edge of the letters.
Not me. I dig the squares, man. 