Dibs on Banjo.
I want the IPU. Then, I can accuse anyone who doesn’t upload an avatar of trying to copy me.
You’re welcome. 
I believe avatars should not only be allowed, but be mandatory. However, they must be chosen not by the individual, but rather assigned by a consensus of SDMB peers via poll in the Avatar Assignment Forum (AAF). You’ve got to earn your avatar. How others see you is more relevant than how you see yourself.
Newbies would start with a featureless, generic avatar, but after a sufficient number of posts, allowing fellow Dopers get a good “feel” for the Newbie’s personality, one will eventually be inclined to post the candidates name in the AAF, along with an avatar they feel best represents them. Other Dopers are then encouraged to upload alternate avatars until, say, a dozen are posted in the candidate’s thread. Then, a poll is called forth and the winning avatar is permanently bonded next to the candidate’s username, for all the world to see, on each and every post they make, from that moment on.
Perhaps, as a money making venture, *Creative Loafing *can permit disgruntled Dopers to buy-out of particularly distasteful avatar assignments for $100 (in similar fashion to soldiers, with sufficient resources, in various armies throughout history, being permitted to buy their way out of service). Likewise, if a Doper changes over time (e.g. becomes less of an ass), their name may pop back up in the AAF and a new avatar may be voted in and assigned.
Think of the anticipatory thrill of lurking in your avatar assignment thread, anxiously awaiting the various avatars your peers offer up for you. Sure, you can champion some, discourage others, but in the end, your pleas will carry little sway—if a majority of Dopers think, say, a wilted penis represents you most accurately, a wilted penis avatar you will be assigned. It’s downright democratic.
Thats untrue actually. I think people should be allowed to have them.
I just think you would be a bit of a weenie to actually want one.
Perhaps I will write a OP sometime expanding on this.
I’d go for “There is a non-zero number of people whose cognitive abilites are lower than mine”
I didn’t say the board is worthless, though some of the participants are. I’m saying the board has a vocal contingent of socially retarded misanthropes who genuinely believe they are super special and that this board is remarkable.
I’m here because it suits me well enough. That doesn’t mean I think there’s anything particularly brilliant or wonderful about the majority of the posters here, just that it’s generally good enough, and I hardly have to love the lot of you.
There’s astonishing room for improvement and no cause for laurel resting even if, you know, there had ever been laurels to start with.
But some of you people clutch the board to your breasties like anti-vaxxer mommies protecting their children. Vaccines, and avatars, won’t hurt diddums.
So you’re saying that the avatars would only be allowed in the Pit, but not GD? No? Then shut up, you idiot.
I don’t give a crap if avatars appear in MPSIMS, or IMHO, or even the pit - places where a side discussion of that picture of Cookie Monster would probably elevate the conversation. And I’m only mildly peeved by the notion of avatars in GD, since most people wouldn’t bother mentioning the stupid things. But to the miniscule degree that they would crap up the forum, that’s a minisculity that is better left at zero.
When a person has to lie about their opponents’ postions to make their point, that’s pretty good proof that their point is crap and they’re full of shit. Don’t you agree?
What a terrible idea.
But I don’t want one, per se. I want others to have them for the aforementioned reasons.
Dopers realizing their posting reputations merit repugnant avatar assignment will indeed consider this idea, “terrible”.
You may wish to start saving for the $100 buy-out…
I apologize for my fucked up Kindergarten Cop movie analogy. It was offensive and inappropriate and I apologize. Please feel free to substitute Labyrinth and David Bowie’s Package.
You want them to be weenies?
Too late. Your avatar will now be Arnold denying the existence of a tumor.
In the interest of maintaining an accurate vilification chart, are these anti-vaxxers the same posters who’d deny gays the right to marry and women the right to vote, or a different group?
And I know it’s tempting, but you might consider being a bit more economical with the slanderous comparisons or you’re going to exhaust them before you know it. You’re already burned through “misogynists,” “homophobes,” and now “conspiracy nuts”— I guess you can still use “Nazis,” although I did imply it myself— it’d just be a shame if you ran out of your high-caliber smears and had nothing left but tame curses, like “rascals” or “ninnies,” which would be really anticlimactic.
Ooh! I thought of one: people who don’t like message board avatars are like just slave traders! You could even get two slurs out of that, using the “Atlantic slave trade” and the “kidnapper/pimp for underage girls” definitions. (If I think of any others, I’ll let you know.)
Why yes, that’s certainly the only possible objection I could possibly have to this brilliant idea. Obviously, if I don’t think it’s a brilliant idea to slap images on people against their will, based on the opinions of the handful of people on the board who care about any given poster’s image (a list that doubtlessly starts with the people who hate them, whoever they are), then it must be because I am of the opinion that I myself am universally hated.
I only post here because I’m a masochist, see.
Wouldn’t much matter what I liked, under your proposed plan, now would it?
ETA: Were I forced to pick an icon, it would actually be this. Since you asked.
Well….no, but I thought it would be advantageous for me to at least give the appearance of benevolence and let you believe you have a say in the matter (I am,after all,campaigning for a Mother Theresa-ish type avatar).
I think you would have to be a bit of a weenie to freak out at the idea of someone seeing your picture on the internet – when you actually posted it there to begin with.
But that’s just me.
(Besides, you needed an entire thread to tell people this? “Heeeheee, you’re all a bunch of dorks!!!”)
I actually somewhat prefer your idea, because there’s at least a chance it would lead to a “mutually assured destruction” scenario where nobody would post anything too cutesy or obnoxious for fear of instantaneous and catastrophic reprisal.