I’m not sure why you quoted my post when you wrote this, as it has nothing to do with what I said. Your decision to demand that people not address each other’s posts in that IMHO thread was poor moderation, regardless of how it was subsequently enforced or whether people can flee to other forums to actually have a discussion. I would rather not see IMHO ruined by poor moderation, so please stop doing that.
Just pointing out that the person asking for the change should be the one to leave. This board currently does not have avatars, so if you can’t stand not having avatars, then go to where they are allowed, don’t bitch and whine here that we should have them. If the board currently had avatars, then you would have a point about the folks wanting to remove avatars should be the ones to leave, not bitch and whine that avatars are too annoying for words.
[quote=“Rhythmdvl, post:246, topic:590594”]
[ul]
[li]As I understand it, off-Board hosting means that there will be absolutely zero impact on Board performance or additional drain on its resources (other than the bits of the referring URL). [/li][/quote]
[/ul]I could use more clarification on what this means and how it works.
Your summary matches what I read the proponents are suggesting, and I find myself agreeing with you.
This is a valid issue to me. We see a fair number of dustups in ATMB over trivial things already, I can’t see how we will avoid the same kind of trivial whines over avatar disputes.
Can you explain further? Are you saying that people who want avatars of themselves would have to host their own? There are sites SDMB could use that host avatars free for them? Or would that be a per user basis, not the board as an entity?
In the off chance something like this happened, then yes, it should be modded. It’s an extension of the “no stalking” policy already in place. How likely is it really? How frequently will something like this happen?
This brings up an excellent point for those asking for avatars to be enabled. Who supplies the avatars? If, say, 60% (to pull a number out of my ass) of the board regulars do not choose to select an avatar, then you won’t see an avatar for them, correct? How does that help you with the “avatars help us distinguish people” argument. Whereas spark240’s solution allows him to give everyone (or at least anyone he wishes) an avatar of his own choosing. Seems more optimal.
Heck, for all I know, he can make an avatar of an asshat* and use it for me** and I’d never know.
*You know, a hat that sits on your ass. I envision something like one of those conical party hats with a string that goes around your waist, or something.
**This is not intended as a suggestion. 
I asked that people keep the debate to the ATMB thread for a very simple reason. This thread and others like it have shown that a small number of people will jump into the thread and repeatedly make the same arguments, just using different stupid analogies each time, until the well is well and truly poisoned.
Consider it like a polling booth. We did not need people hanging around outside it making snide remarks and trying to influence voters. No problem whatsoever though with people coming out of the booth and saying what way they voted and why.
Its worth noting though, I never asked any mods to enforce anything, and I think the first warning given out was extremely harsh.
As for the poll itself, I very intentionally wanted to be as basic as possible. Seemed to me that in all the threads like this nobody had formally asked what should have been the very first question, “Do you want avatars?”. The first page of this thread alone talks about the majority of the board not wanting avatars, but your more specific poll from last year wasnt answering that question. In my simpler poll, if ninety percent of people had voted yes perhaps we would have a very different debate than all this “but its optional innit rollseyes” bullshit.
You may think they are fun, but that doesn’t mean they are. They are juvenile visual clutter for people who aren’t really ready for a board where grown-up people communicate in writing. If you want a message board where you can think up an hilarious avatar and have it appear next to your name (oh! the fun!) then there are eleventy gazillion of them out there already. We’ll miss the sound of your cheerful laughter and deliciously fun ways, but somehow we’ll survive.
I really care little either way. I have come to like the clean - even perhaps bare - appearance of the SDMB. But I really can’t imagine my experience being impacted at all if avatars were an opt-in option.
If that meant I might need to skip over an occasional thread because it was actually about avatars, I wouldn’t be put out. After all, I skip over *most *threads anyway because their subjects are of no interest to me. And if I missed some back-handed reference to an avatar in some thread I was reading, big deal, there are lots of inside jokes and subtle allusions that I don’t get but can’t be troubled to research as things stand right now.
I would personally keep avatars turned off, since I find them unnecessarily distracting from my thoughts. But heck, the SDMB is my entertainment, not my vocation. So I might occasionally turn them on, for the grins and giggles of seeing how my mental pictures of posters match up with their self-image as expressed in their avatars. And then I’d turn them back off.
But I am at a loss to understand how allowing other people to have/see something that brings them pleasure in any way diminishes the experience of those like me who do not wish to share that exact experience. As long as I/we can opt out, that is.
Ed, it’s your Board and you can do as you like with it, and I appreciate the straight answer regardless of which way it goes. Still, I just don’t see the harm and it seems that quite a few people would see something good in it.
Oh, no worries, I don’t REQUIRE avatars to have a good laugh…I’m sufficiently amused by posts like yours!
What is wrong with a TRIAL period, just to see how things work out? That’s it. If avatars “destroy the tone of the board/create visual havoc”, etc, then they’re gone. If nothing big happens, then hey, maybe it’s not such a bad idea?
I swear, for a place dedicated to fighting ignorance, this thread is full of it.
You know another board that doesn’t have avatars? Yeah, lots of adult conversation over there.
“Juvenile visual clutter”? Yep, this place is really, really immature.
This is my position too.
I don’t know if I would use for sure an avatar, but I do know that I keep track of folks better on message boards with avatars than here.
It doesn’t matter in most threads (I just read messages and gives up trying to easily keep track of who said what), but in Great Debate, unless it’s one of those threads with only two people arguing, all posters pretty much turn into a blur, unless they’re long timers (I’ve been here since 2002), or people whose username particularly caught my eye, and it bothers me.
I used that greasemonkey script for a while, then it became too much of a bother to assign an avatar to many many posters.
I know we’ve had our differences on this, but I appreciate your level-headedness. I wish Czarcasm followed the same tact when moderating.
Well, despite the poll still going on (which I never believed should have been necessary for a simple request by some users to use a feature that never need darken the threads of any other users who didn’t want to see them) it looks like TPTB have already made a ruling based on a personal distaste for the object of the request. TPTB would need to allow them in their preferences in order to moderate/administer so if one or more of them simply ‘doesn’t like other people to have something they personally don’t like’ I suppose that is a solid enough reason.
I think it’s a shame so many warnings got doled out although the instructions in the other thread were quite clear. I started getting pulled into debate by one poster and by sheer luck I had taken a break before replying and saw the moderator note to knock it off, so I abstained or I would have gotten at least one.
I think a couple of the people that got warned might have just wandered into a poll, didn’t read every single comment, and got blindsided by a warning when they responded to the posts immediately above theirs without reading back far enough but that is impossible to know for sure.
You know who else didn’t have avatars? Hitler!!!
At this particular board I don’t want avatars. I like SDMB to be the one discussion boards where there are no avatars, images, animated stuff and things that goes bling. “They are optional,” you say a little bit frustrated by now.
Ok, so I don’t want optional avatars. Also, I don’t want optional images, or optional videos. I also don’t want optional animated smilies, or optional christmas trees. “Why?” you ask. “You don’t have to see them, you have to turn the christmas tree on to see it. Don’t turn it on if you don’t want to see it.” Well, if the SDMB is full of shit I don’t see, I’m unable to participate because my settings is shutting out information other posters see. So I turn it on, and the boards are full of bling bling I don’t want to see because I come here to *read *what other dopers write and I’m easily distracted by images that has nothing to do with the content and things that moves. So now what? Turn it on sometimes to participate, and turn it off when I think I don’t need them, depending on the thread I’m reading?
Of course, you say, “Hey, it’s only an avatar.” Ok, so next time you say: “Hey, it’s just an animated smilie, you don’t have to watch it, and it’s only a vid, don’t click on it if you don’t want to see it, and for christ sake, why can’t we have animated avatars like everybody else? Turn them off if you don’t want to see them!”
In short, I’m happy with the admins of SDMB drawing a line in the sand, saying: Here we don’t use it. Here we use text only. As one doper said above, “invisible ketchup is still ketchup”. That’ll go into my sig if I had one, because in short, I simply do not like ketchup.
Avatars aren’t part of one’s arguments in a thread. They aren’t a point of view in regard to any one post or thread or area of the board they are just an extension of a user name, signature, etc. The argument that enabling one feature would lead to a massively exaggerated overuse of every possible media type known to the internet is ridiculous.
Opinions in opposition from a non mod or admin are honestly irrelevant to the discussion. You are arguing that for your own reasons as a board user you don’t want others to have something that you don’t need to have, see, or participate in. It won’t change the outward appearance of the board to guests, it won’t change the inside appearance of the board to you, but you just don’t like it and so you don’t want anyone else to like it. That isn’t an acceptable reason to get involved in someone else’s question to TPTB about something that quite frankly doesn’t concern you in any way.
Many, if not most, threads here wind up with links to external content, cites, videos, pictures, etc. That already is the case whether you like it or not, and it has absolutely nothing to do with user avatars which are a fixed size, non-animated, and exactly what they are without any hidden ramifications or future consequences.
TPTB have already stated they don’t plan to grant the request. They do have to see them if they allow some users to have them so, right or wrong, that is their decision at least for now. Why continue to argue against it as an outsider to the issue, with absolutely no stake in the outcome?
Why should the person asking for the change be the one to leave? I mean, I tend to think it’s a silly argument; I don’t plan to leave if avatars (as seems certain now with Ed’s dislike added onto Tuba’s) don’t come in, and I would guess that those equally against them on the other side wouldn’t all leave if they did. But I don’t see why the status quo should have priority, in that sense.
Could you specify which posts of mine you consider to be bitching and whining (if you did mean me specifically)? Obviously it’d be helpful to not give that appearance.
Okay, folks. Here’s a serious proposal to implement avatars on the Straight Dope, based on Guin’s suggestion for a trial period.
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Avatars will be permitted for a trial period of two months. The two-month period is to see if the hypotheticals some have brought up (DMCA notices, avatars used for trolling, fights over duplicate avatars, Goatse, etc) really do emerge.
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During the first two-month period, avatars will only be displayed in Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Say. MPSIMS is the SDMB’s least “serious” forum, and the one that is least likely to be affected by any kind of (unlikely but) hypothetical “change in tone”. This is also a forum that is rarely visited by Ed Zotti; 34 posts total, only one post this year.
If the trial is successful, the next forum where avatars will be enabled is The Game Room. Two months after that, In My Humble Opinion. Two months after that, The BBQ Pit. After that, another forum. And so on.
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Avatars will never be enabled for the “serious” forums. NEVER. This includes General Questions, Great Debates, Elections, Comments on Cecil’s Columns/Staff Reports, Cafe Society. Avatars will also never appear in Ed’s forums: Straight Dope Chicago and The Barn House.
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Avatars will be limited to a size of 64x64 pixels. This will ensure consistency in design, and make them visually unobtrusive for those that have e display enabled.
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Avatars are limited to 5k in file size.
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Avatars must be static. Animated avatars will not be allowed.
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Avatars must be unoffensive and safe for work.
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Only paid members will be allowed to have avatars. This also reduces the likelihood of socks registering just to display a NSFW or offensive avatar.
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Avatar display will be off by default. Registered members must opt in to be able to see them. Unregistered visitors and banned users will not see them. Again, registered members must opt in to be able to see them. Otherwise, they will not see them, because they did not opt in. Members that did not opt in will not be able to see avatars. Avatars will not be visible to members unless they want them to be visible. Members will not be forced to see avatars, nor will they see them unless they choose to do so. Only members who have the “Display avatars” option checked to “yes” in their control panel will see them. All other members will not be able to see them. If a member did not choose to see avatars, they will not see them. They will not appear in any posts they view if they did not choose to see them. If a member did not check “yes” for “Display avatars” in your control panel, they will not see avatars. The display of avatars will be enabled only for those that have chosen to see them. All mon-members, and members that have chosen not to see avatars will not see them. The only people that will see avatars are members that have willingly chosen to see them on their own accord by selecting “yes” for “Display avatars” in their control panel.
This is a good idea. One reason for my (mild) dislike of avatars is that I find it hard to take someone who has a cute/silly/whatever avatar seriously in a serious discussion. Does anyone else feel like this, or am I just being odd?
Is it technically possible to allow them in some forums but not others?
I believe a lot of these very same arguements were used when the facebook buttons were added. And did anything happen? Hardly.
Again, why not give it a TRIAL PERIOD and see? What’s the harm?
Yes, through a custom template. It’ll take TPTB only a few minutes to make one, and set it as the default for that forum.
So you are saying that people who do not want to see them will have their eyelids held open with toothpicks and be forced to see them. Or am I missing something?
elmwood – good ideas, the only thing I disagree with is the idea that you have to pay to use one. Since a lot of people who are paid members disagree, and those who aren’t paid members want them. Just a tip. Other than that, cool idea.
I believe a lot of these very same arguements were used when the facebook buttons were added. And did anything happen? Hardly.
Again, why not give it a TRIAL PERIOD and see? What’s the harm?
I believe a lot of these very same arguements were used when the facebook buttons were added. And did anything happen? Hardly.
Again, why not give it a TRIAL PERIOD and see? What’s the harm?
This is pretty much the only board I know of that DOESN’T have avatars. That’s not a slam, or to say that other boards are better or worse. But simply that on other boards, said avatars have no impact on the content, except for the occassional – hey, cool avatar, where’d you get it? I’ve still seen plenty of intellectual, adult, mature conversation. Likewise, I’ve seen “juvenile, inane babble” here. (Pan-fried semen, post your cat pictures, links to stupid youtube videos). That’s all. I don’t think avatars are going to have a major effect, and those who claim they will have yet to put forward a convincing argument other than, “I don’t like them and they’re juvenile.”
I’d say changing the Pit rules, and pay to post had much more of an effect around here than avatars would. (I’m NOT saying those changes were good or bad, just that they had more of an impact)
(Eeeps – sorry for the double post!!!)