Honestly, it would be better to just say “we’re not doing it because I said so,” like I do with my kids. I’ve found it actually works better than making arguments that the kids can poke holes right through.
I think what’s really going on here is that Dopers think that avatars will bring the wrong element to the board…that people who like avatars are intellectually deficient somehow, or that they value goofiness or fun over serious discourse. Maybe that’s true, I kind of doubt it, but perhaps. On the other hand, those people will probably stick to the “fun” forums and stay out of the sacred ground of GQ and GD, so I still don’t see who it’s going to hurt.
I do not know how to start a poll but I think with new people around and the open-mindedness in this thread, the old school would be disappointed. Although it might bring out all the anals.
Since people are writing greasemonkey scripts to get around this, and others are using those scripts already, in effect the board does already feature avatars. They are just accomplished through a cumbersome kludge that is difficult to moderate or ensure consistency, instead of a convenient and easier to moderate built-in board feature.
When someone posts a text message here, and includes a link (to a cite or whatever) then don’t the mods need to follow that link to verify it isn’t a rule violation? Or at the least, if a complaint is received about a link in a post, a mod would be on the hook to check it out and act accordingly. So if users start tacking links on to every post to their external avatar so that other users can run greasemonkey scripts and see the image in the post, then don’t each of those links need to be moderated anyway? And if so, wouldn’t it be less mod work if the picture were visible right there in the post instead of having to be linked to or accessed via a third-party browser add on?
If ‘growth’ means attracting the type of posters who can’t make it through five pages of a book unless it has pictures, then growth = bad.
If ‘growth’ means Rainbow-Striped Unicorns burning into our retinas 20 times a page then growth = bad.
Ergo, no avatars, and no tears shed over the loss of erstwhile subscribers to what would become “Playskool’s My First SDMB”.
Everybody here knows how to get a hold of picture books if they want to. Similarly, I assume everybody here knows how to locate flashy, short attention-span message boards with pictures. If that’s what you want, go go for it. Just* please* stop agitating to bring that clutter around here, ok? Because…
…It’s already out there! Go get it! Grab the Gusto! Go play with those cool, with-it, happy shiny people and stop bitching about our boring, stodgy, old-fashioned, gray, bland, yawner of a message board. You are free to get off our nursing home lawn, dammit, whenever you want.
This is it. We’ve seen this over & over again in this thread. What’s funny is that the “posters who can’t make it through five pages of a book unless it has pictures” argument is really quite stupid.
I voted “yes” but I want to add that I think even having a vote creates a false premise on the question that those in opposition have any legitimate reason to oppose it. I don’t see that they do.
Other than mods and TPTB who might have some legitimate workload, aesthetic, or other reason to say no, there really isn’t a legitimate reason that an unaffected party should be able to vote “no”. It’s an opt-in feature being requested by some users to those who can make the decision. A board-wide poll makes it appear that it would have some impact on anyone who wasn’t interested in it when it wouldn’t.
I see it more like a feature request between a subset of the user base and TPTB, kind of like requesting a new forum topic because some percent of the user base has a common, specialized interest they want to discuss. It’s just a request from a portion of the users to the board operators, why would anyone “vote” on it, or vote “no” on it other than those users and TPTB?
In short, if 159 people vote “yes” and 174 people vote “no” the only thing I think that should mean to TPTB is that 159 users would actively like to use this feature, and that’s it. Those who don’t want it don’t have to use it, I’m not sure why they would vote.
Exactly. It basically mirrors one of the most intense real-life debates perfect, and I’m surprised to see the posters here succumb to similar lapses in logic.
Avatars and such nonsense are all over the Internet at almost every other message board there is. Just leave thus one site free of it. Someone who can’t put up with this one difference at this one location, we’re better off without 'em.
On the other hand, inconvenience doesn’t bring in the riffraff who would otherwise be attracted by an avatar-enabled board, right?
More meaningfully, this means that anyone can have the avatar set of their own choice, for all posters, or all that we find worth remembering. Moderation isn’t even applicable; nobody sees the images except the reader who chooses them.
I’m thinking this could be a lot more fun than an enabling of standard avatars.
So are “user names” and “email addresses”, and “Links” - I don’t see your point. Some users would like to use a feature that is already built-in to the board software to display a small image next to their name. It is only visible to others if they go into their preferences and turn it on. So if you didn’t want to see them, or felt that they were already too widespread on the internet (?), all you would have to do in response to this terrifying change is: absolutely nothing. After accomplishing that, you would be able to continue using the board as you normally do with no interruption or change in any way.
So the only reasonable alternative to a site with avatars is a site with no content at all?
There are some hamburger and hot dog joints that refuse to allow ketchup on the premises. This is the same thing. If you like the place enough to give up the ketchup, you’re welcome in. If you just can’t stand not having ketchup, just go to one of the 99.9 percent of joints that serve ketchup and stop complaining about this one ketchup-free zone.
If the greasemonkey workaround caught on then every user, whether they wanted to be involved with avatars or not, would definitely have to see the links being tacked on to the end of every post anyway, with no option to opt out of them. And the mods would have to moderate all those links and make sure they weren’t porn or something harassing another user, etc. etc. just like with the built-in avatars except more difficult and less in the control of TPTB.
Having it all self-contained within a little checkbox on the user CP and being able to opt-in or out, I honestly don’t see what the debate is about anymore.
And we still haven’t had an answer* to why it’s such a big deal to you anti-avatar types for other people to have and see avatars.
*Ok, there’s the vague “It’ll attract the wrong crowd. We don’t want their sort here” vibe, but that’s really not an answer and really…is that really the attitude you want to have to about half of your fellow Dopers?
Other patrons would still see the ketchup being slathered onto the burgers, and smell it, maybe get some of it on their fries in a lunch hour rush accident. But patrons of this board would never see, smell, or know that the avatars exist unless they wanted to.
