I’d like to know why. Is every avatar vapid? You called me obnoxious, but the implication that wanting avatars makes one vapid isn’t? Or how about someone that doesn’t take Dopers at their word when they say the avatars aren’t helpful when it comes to aiding memory? That’s not obnoxious?
It’s been answered and Absolute doesn’t “buy” it.
The anti-avatar group jumps to some conclusions that I don’t think is necessarily warranted. They see other boards with low level discourse that have avatars and assume that there’s a link. Correlation is not necessarily causation. I don’t think it’s out of line to question those conclusions. Think about it:
“Avatars and embedded images certainly don’t promote intellectual content.”
Do people really believe this? Or are they rationalizing their dislike of avatars and images? There are plenty of images that promote intellectual content. And I trust Doper will, for the most part, be smart about their use.
Someone points out that there are boards that allow avatars and are intellectually oriented, but those get dismissed because they’re not general interest. I’m sorry, that deserves to be challenged. What is it about general interest board, this one in particular, that makes it susceptible to anti-intellectualism once avatars get activated? How is this board different? Sounds to me like a reach to try to dismiss arguments that disprove what you believe.
The whole idea that avatars will push us that avatars will “push us slightly, perhaps imperceptibly, in the wrong direction” is the knee jerk reaction. I’d like to know why. It sure seems to indicate a pretty low opinion of Dopers.
I like 'em because they do aid in Doper recognition. I would like to see how Dopers express their personality via avatars. There’s a lot of creative people here, I’d like to see what they do with them. And since they can be turned off if you don’t want to see them, it’s win-won for everyone.
I can’t stand faces. I say “nay” to faces. Faces demand that I look at them, and frankly I find most faces ugly and annoying. Why, some faces are covered in garish pink makeup, or have large, scraggly copses of facial hair. It only detracts from what they’re trying to say, really. Besides, everyone is wearing a name tag, and I find that just as useful as a person not having a face. For the remote chance one face is beautiful, subtle, or even unique and recognizable, it’s not worth the risk that a face might be offensive and ugly! Also, like most of the internet denizens, I have Asperger’s syndrome, so avatars don’t really register as good as names do, anyway. All I see are EYES. NOSE. MOUTH. MOLE. It’s distracting!
One more thing, It doesn’t matter that I can easily just not look at someone’s face if I don’t want to. I’d just rather everyone not look at someone’s face, in case someone decides to talk about their face (or someone else’s face), I don’t want to be left out.*
*The above is satire, please adjust sense of humor accordingly.
My only observation is that the board has done just fine since the implementation of the edit feature, although much disapproval was voiced prior. Since I believe the same thing would happen with avatars (standard caveats applied), my vote stands as a…
No, I did not call you obnoxious. I said I thought you were being [intentionally] obnoxious*, and apologized. Scroll up and re-read it. Seems part of the problem is that you’re looking for offense when none is intended. And yes. Every avatar is vapid. Again…that is my opinion. See…I think you’re taking people’s opinions of things and applying them to you, personally. No one called you vapid, but suddenly, “avatars are vapid”=“you are vapid for wanting them.” I don’t like the color lavender, either. That mean I think you’re a shallow twit for wearing it (if you do)? No. You need to separate the two, here.
Okay, a few things.
I think it still boils down to: you are not going to see any of the opinions that disagree with yours as reasonable because you view it as a group of people trying to stop you from doing something you want to do, while at the same time, refusing to acknowledge that you are trying to push a change that they do not want. Why should anyone validate your opinion while invalidating their own in the process?
There isn’t any “proof” that allowing avatars and embedded pics won’t invite an element that will lower the general tone of the board, just one person’s opinion that their board hasn’t suffered. And I think that the anecdotal evidence of the number of people who’ve come out and said that every board they’ve been to that allows avis/embedded objects/pics etc. has pretty much been a waste is more than a little higher than those who’ve come out and said “it doesn’t lower the tone.” But you’re welcome to do a count if you’ve the time.
“Anti-intellectualism” is the new red herring. Let’s not fall prey to it, hmm?
“Knee jerk reaction.” I don’t think it means what you think it means. If you can give a well considered answer that also takes the other person’s argument into consideration, it isn’t knee jerk. Whereas accusations and finger pointing seem over much like a temper tantrum because someone is not allowed their favorite toy.
To all who go on about how they don’t experience slow downs: Horse apples. The board has been “down for maintenance” at least twice in the past four months. You didn’t “experience” slow downs? Then you didn’t sign on during those times, or the few days preceding each time it happened. Except I know for sure that two of you did, because two of you posted to the Pit thread to bitch about the slow downs. I get that you want avatars, but can you try to do it without stooping to deliberate falsehoods?
How do you know it aids in doper recognition? We’ve not had 'em. There are, indeed, many creative people here. But please bear in mind that you are essentially asking everyone to agree with you based on the simple premise that you want something and think it’s a good idea. That isn’t going to happen here. Pick a position and you are more or less guaranteed someone on this board will disagree.
*as is often the case when someone answers a question with a question.
A few points, as I’ve had to catch up to this thread since I’ve not visited in a few days.
We have forums for Entertainment, Gaming, and even Flaming (oh my!). Not to mention the MPSIMS. Besides the GQ, which is the SDMB’s flagship forum, the other sub-forums would probably mildly benefit from the usage of avatars. Cafe Society, The Game Room, IMHO, and The BBQ Pit are all forums that require a certain perspective, personality and individuality. Avatars help establish that. Whether you realize it or not, pictures stick better in a lot of people’s brains than names alone do. It’s like a unique smell, or a certain song. They immediately invoke memories that words alone can not.
They are fun to some. Some visitors like to tinker and perhaps even display some originality. It’s not the end of the world, just human nature that can be mildly satisfying. I will say I am curious what the SDMB will look like with avatars. I suspect most people will post pictures of their cats, but hey, that’s their prerogative. But, on the flip side, this is an intellectual board bent on a certain esoteric geekiness. I think there’ll be some neat avatars, if not somewhat revealing.
If bandwidth is certainly an issue, than I would not be for it. If it slows down the boards here, anymore that it already is (not talking about negligible differences, only something noticeable), then initiating avatars would be absurd. They are a luxury more than anything else. I think that goes without saying.
Most of the negatives that have been brought up, are moot if these are found to be the case: Site responsiveness doesn’t take a hit; Members can toggle them on or off; they’re not very big or animated; copyrighted material falls under fair usage (which I’m sure it would).
I visit a lot of other boards, and I’ve never seen a particularly offensive avatar. Besides, here, an offensive or particularly obnoxious avatar would be a red flag for a troll, or someone who does not fit well within this community. Also, most users do stick with an avatar for a while after settling, so it is usually an effective way to invoke easy identification, and certainly over the course of the life of an average thread.
There are some regular posters here that I don’t need an avatar for, because they are so prolific, respectable and memorable, I’ve come to know them by name. Others though, I think, is that the same one who said [this]? If I saw a picture of something instantly recognizable and unique, I could certainly, beyond a shadow of a doubt, keep better tabs. I know this, because I don’t have as much a problem with this on other boards, than I do here.
That’s actually not a bad idea, if the subscription model were to stay the way it is now. The main reason I would like to see avs, is for identification. I suspect a lot of members of this board are going to let their subscriptions lapse after the big move for paying to kill in-thread ads (which are the very people I’d expect not to mind some screen clutter). In that case, there’d be a sizable number of regular posters that wouldn’t be allowed to have avatars who would actually like, use, or at least not mind that feature.
Also, I can understand why a lot of people have a very opposing stance on avatars. They can be garish, obnoxious, visually distracting, or just plain dumb and stupid. But I feel the real reason might be that of association. This board has never had avatars, and it’s the most intellectual board on the net I know of. Most other boards do allow avatars because they are more “general public”, or might attract the true philistines of the internet. You can’t help but associate their avatars with the drivel they spew. I feel that’s what might be coloring a lot of opinions. It’s really more of a prejudice (along with the objective negatives listed above). We start to think what makes this board one of the best on the net, is it’s minimalism and text-only content, because that’s how we subconsciously differentiate it from the “other” boards.
I could see some general outlines or suggestions for making an avatar here.
• No obnoxious colors, like solid primaries or hot pinks and strong yellows.
• Tasteful imagery and low key tones. No animated gifs.
• Keep text and overlaid graphics to a bare minimum, if none at all.
• Try and make the image personal or revealing about your personality. Come up with something pragmatic but original and unique.
• Single objects and/or simple scenes work best. Noisy images with a lot of complex subject matter don’t work well, and can be annoying or distracting or just plain unrecognizable, and therefore frustrating and useless.
• If you need help creating a good-looking, attractive avatar, ask around here. There are many good graphic designers on this board that would gladly help.
• A template [linked here] is ready for download and customizability. Also, [here] are some technical suggestions for exporting compression and file size. (assuming we come up with a standard look, we could have a layered PSD or some other format that supports layers available for users to download, then customize).
(bolding mine)
The problem is that everyones taste differ wildly. If the mods think they have it bad now just wait until the “Why can’t I have this if Poster A can have that?” starts.
Most of the avatars on the site are tasteful; there’s never heard any complaints. Okay … only once, when someone changed their avatar to a middle finger. They were banned. The avatar was just the final straw in string of rules violations to that user’s name. Again, it was just once, in the seven years that avatars have been an option on the site.
If people are afraid of implementing new features because they could cause some possible conflict, you might was well shut down the board, because everything from usernames to posts will be a source of trouble in some respect. Yes, if implemented, the SDMB may have the occasional problem with a tasteless avatar. Based on my experience, though, such problems will be extremely rare compared to issues with tasteless user names, tasteless posts, and spam.
Obviously. Never the less, it’s easy to pick out anything too retina-damaging. Also, this wouldn’t be anything to enforce, merely a guideline. I think most people here would fall into line and keep them subdued, most want an attractive avatar anyway. The community at large would frown upon anything eye-gouging, and we have a mostly respectful bunch here.
Does anyone else remember how, back in the early days of the board, we all swore p and down that animated smilies were the devil and that enabling them here would make us all stupid? And then how, during the Winter of our Missed Content, we went over to the temp board, found smashie, and promptly fell in love with him? And how there were threads for a while after we came back begging for smashie on our own board? No? Just me?
Perhaps it would be clearer if you put the caption on a cat.
