Isn’t that a perfect example of specious reasoning? Can you look at elmwood’s urban planning website and say that it’s not rather full of interesting talk and intelligent people? How about Unaboard? And if you think those places are dull and full of dullards, do you blame the avatars?
Since all those old threads are off the server, it might be easier for you to point out some other message board that has been held liable for an avatar image. Also, are you equally worried about copyrighted material in sig lines?
I’m pointing out the reason they killed it back then. Many people since that time don’t know about it.
I’m about as old as members get on the board. My knee-jerk reaction is to say NO.
But, since we can turn them off, I say YES.
I doubt that the number of instances where we have people commenting about another’s avatar are gonna be rare, at least after the shock wears off. We had this with the Google text ads.
“Oh, the world is coming to an end!!”
After a few weeks, the novelty will wear off, and posters can go on with their lives. If it attracts newbies, then great. No one will leave because of it, since they can turn the feature off. I’ll have it off from the get-go.
It will be a non-issue, except for the inital experience.
Sorry, but I will never reach the point where I don’t see those bugs. They’re the spawn of Satan. They almost receded into the background, and then they made them opaque. Then they made them bigger. Then they animated them. Then they added SOUND! There are networks I won’t even watch because something pops up in the corner of the screen making noise and moving at inappropriate times during a movie.
If you’re trying to make a pitch in favor of avatars, then don’t compare them to those vile network bugs.
That is pretty much exactly how I feel about it. Except my member isn’t as old as yours.
Both times I had the impression the reference was to my statement in Post 51, “I’d like the same experience, as far as possible, when I read a post, as anyone else reading that post.”
Characterizing that statement as selfish puzzles me. If avatars were here I would keep them ‘on’ knowing they would be useful, at times, for understanding Posts, much like smilies now. But it would detract from the look of the board, like smilies now. If you were not referring to my Post 51, please excuse.
I don’t frequent other message boards so I sampled links to ‘tasteful’ avatar-laden examples provided in this thread. My gut instinct is confirmed. I can’t imagine having those pages up at work.
My NAY remains even if the option of turning them off is available. Geez, give some people an inch and they’ll take a mile. Best to quash this sort of thing at the start.
This elmwood entity sure does have a lot of reasons why it wants to display self-entertaining images on this message board. The only one it pounds on repeatedly, relentlessly, unendingly, annoyingly, continuously is that the avatars can be turned off.
Fine, I say. Turn avatars off, completely. If the only reason to allow them is that they can be turned off, then abort them before they can get started.
Nobody has yet shown any good reason to have them. Are they any better than graffiti on storefronts? Are they nobler than paintball splats on stop signs? Are they more informational than bullet holes in a mailbox, except to the shooter? I have no reason to say yes. When I walk my dog, she stops to check the p-mail. When an avatar is offensive enough, she squats to click “reply to all”.
What makes you think this would happen? Do you really think the kids are all waiting for the SDMB to allow avatars just so they can hang out here?
Bring on avatars. Bring on inline pictures. Bring on embedded video.
The SDMB, right now, is like reading the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, compared to the National Inquirer, or like reading a novel compared to a comic book. I like that our only mechanism of communicating is through text - and I would prefer that the board remain this way.
This is the most intellectual board I know of - the minimalist, businesslike layout, the crisp colors, the lack of HTML, avatars and graphics, the low use of smileys - all contribute. This is what makes the SDMB unique, and special.
Adding avatars would be a step in the wrong direction. It would be a subtle change, but the mood would be different. Even if I could turn them off for myself, adding them would affect the behavior and priorities of other people.
The day I see the “Oh RLY?” owl, or some inane crap like that in an SDMB thread, is the day I leave.
I’ll address post 51. Imagine if you enjoyed your black and white TV. Enjoyed it so much that you never switched to colour. Do you think it would be selfish to try and lobby to block colour transmissions, so everyone could be the exact same, like you want, and still be in the style you prefer? Or would it be less selfish to just keep your old set and let others do as they please?
I understand the aesthetic reasoning of wanting everyone to be having the exact same experience, but you should realize that ideal is already long gone. People view on different browsers, operating systems and preference settings even between two identical systems. Do you feel your experience diminished because at this very moment there are people viewing this in a dumbed down version on their cellphone? That some people have blocked smilies or sig lines? Are those with adblockers robbing the community of unanimous understanding of the latest “OMG! Guess what the google ads are saying?!? lol!” announcement?
Umm, yeah. Wouldn’t want the avatars to distract from the high-minded dog piss metaphors.
For the record, users can disable those too. 
Because they provide a supplement to usernames as a form of user identification; one that has been said to be better suited for those that think more visually or spatially.
Uhhh … avatars aren’t exactly vandalism. FWIW, one can easily vandalize the SDMB now. In fact, it happens many times every day, with the spammers that register and manage to post, and the tens of new bot-generated users with names like “wddfgpps”. Nothing is stopping any regular users from threadshitting with nonsense posts that include obnoxious fonts, colors, typefaces, and Unicode swastikas, skulls, and the like, even though the ability is already there.
The WSJ and NYT have color photos now, you know; it’s not just stipple drawings anymore. Sure, the old-school crowd that values “authenticity” may not be pleased, but the presence of color photos did not dumb down the publications one bit.
I thought it was special because of the (semi-)intellectual content, not the minimalism. Besides, the design-oriented message boards like Typophile do a much better job at pulling off the minimalist look than the SDMB. Even then, they have avatars.
No, I don’t think they’d add anything.
It’s not a perfect analogy. In any case, I do not expect the users of avatars and embedded images to be as restrained as the editors of the NYT and WSJ.
My point is that the minimalism promotes the semi-intellectual content. Regardless of what their other characteristics may be, avatars and embedded images certainly don’t.
And, FWIW, an excellent post during a similar debate on another message board:
Yeah, I think the avatar size eventually permitted on that site is too large. Still …
Does that mean avatars cause discussions to be dumbed down? Tell that to the users of my board, Unaboard, Bad Astronomy and Universe Today, or any of the hundreds of other more intellectual-oriented messages boards out there where avatars are permitted.
Also, I’ve seen plenty of minimalistic message boards where there’s not much in the way of intellectual content, not to mention many Usenet groups.