I would add to this that if a mod deemed an avatar was unacceptable for basically whatever reason, they would be able to delete it on the spot without a big fiasco erupting in ATMB. It would be a probationary period agreed to by the participants and all mod decisions would be final. I’m so confident that the vast majority of avatars would be tasteful, visually appealing and non-disruptive I would be willing to sign away my rights to complain about any mod decisions regarding avatars.
Even though I’m one of the pro-avatar people, I agree with you there. There might be some self-selection; those users who tend to post to the less serious forums are those that are more likely to have an avatar depicting something cutsey or glurgey. Still, GQ, GD, CoCC and the like are the forums that, at least in my opinion, I think the anti-avatar Dopers consider the most “sacred”, and most representative of what they feel is the zeitgeist of the SDMB.
We could also have ONE sticky thread in MPSIMS for “Make me an Avatar”, where we could discuss them. Because I’d be more than happy to make them for people, and I’m sure there are others who feel the same way.
Thus, the suggested restriction of avatar display (for those who have opted in and chosen to see them, yadda yadda yadda) to the forums where most such discussions take place; MPSIMS, IMHO, and the like. There tends to be few multi-page threads on atheism in MPSIMS or IMHO, nor comparing how each others’ typical bowel movements are classified on the Bristol Stool Chart in GD.
This is normally how it happens on most message boards. Dopers are far more vocal about moderator actions here than what I’ve seen on other message boards, but like so many things, it’s just a part of “board culture”. One of the potential shortcomings of avatars here that you won’t see on other boards, I’ll admit.
It would be better if anything to charge a flat fee for *changing *avatars, member or guest, because each change would theoretically require a mod vetting (even though it probably would just occur naturally as a result of using the board, and not per a mod schedule for vetting changed avatars per se). It should be a significant enough fee that it discourages changing avatars every 2 days but not so steep that it prices out guests completely.
Crazyhorse, your reply is so weird to me (though I’m sure you are a great guy) that for the first time in my SDMB carreer (as far as I remember) I feel the need to chop the reply in parts to answer it part by part. Hope you don’t mind (I kind of mind the technique myself).
I know.
It is not ridiculous. I am quite sure it would happen. Though I’m not saying you (or other pro-avatars) in this thread would do so.
I sincerely do not understand this; aren’t we discussing things, airing opinions about avatars?
That is not true, I would never want to rob you of anything, why on earth would I want to do that? But the point is that we are not on two different boards, one with at tree and the other without. If you put a tree here it is in the room we share and it is this common room we are discussing. How shall it look? And my point is that if there *is *a (invisible) christmas tree here I need to know about it, otherwise I’m not able to participate because there are “shit” here I don’t know about which others are discussing. Therefore the optional christmas tree is slightly intrusive even though I can’t see it. So I have opinions about the three, because I care about the room.
That is not true, if I got to choose everyone would be happy. Believe me. However, this being a message board with very many posters, and when there are very many attendants, not everybody will be super happy with every decision. This being a thread for discussing “avatars yes or no” I argued for my opinion. That certainly doesn’t mean I want somebody to be unhappy.
I simply don’t understand what you are saying here, any clarification or elaboration would be appreciated.
I agree.
I’m not sure what you mean, but in the poll thread “Should we allow Avatars”, Czarcasm says in #53,
So after I voted, and actually read this whole thread (most of it yesterday), I took my “debate” here.
I don’t think that’s possible without a hack. I run a vBulletin-based board with avatars, and users tend not to change them that often. When they do, it’s quite infrequent, and thus not that disorienting.
FWIW, the avatar rules on my board:
• Only users with 25 posts or more can have an avatar.
• Avatar images must be non-animated, ≤80 pixels in any dimension, and ≤3 KB.
• Avatars must not be misleading, offensive or inflammatory.
It’s worked so far for 11 years.
I know, right? So much drama, vitriol and butt-hurt over avatars?!? I don’t get it.
I’m personally mildly against it, but I really don’t care that much because, as has been noted *ad nauseam, *it would be optional. But if the images were uploaded and hosted on this site, my mild opposition would turn into strong opposition.
The board is pretty slow during peak times as it is. The poor hamsters would probably keel over if they were forced to process avatars. But I suppose if there were a sufficient charge for avatars, that could fund the bandwidth/server/hamster upgrades necessary to offset any performance issues.
Nope, you wouldn’t have to host them here. You’d upload them to a site like photobucket, or tinypic.
More condescension from the pro-avatar crowd. Oh. Wait.
Stop being so reasonable. Don’t you know only stupid people like pictures?
Good thing that Creative Loafing is so financially healthy that they can ignore a potential revenue generator.
If that were the case, then allowing avatars to a subset of the users who want to use them would neither encourage or discourage it. People are currently free to link to whatever media they want outside of the board if it is on topic and/or appropriate and you are saying that if a group of users were granted the ability to have fixed size, non-animated avatars next to their usernames it would immediately cause widespread abuse, links to videos, animations, etc. and more requests for even more avatar type things that you don’t like. But it wouldn’t - if it would, it would already be going on now with signatures, usernames, links to external sites, greasemonkey scripts, etc.
Yes and in fact I really have no place to tell you that your opinion is irrelevant since it is being sought by TPTB and other board users. I am saying it *shouldn’t *be considered relevant even though it is, because in fact you have no stake in the outcome. If avatars are or are not allowed for a group of users who are interested in them, it will have no effect on you in any way.
You believe that there would be one effect: as long as avatars were allowed anyway and some people were using the feature, then you would feel left out if you didn’t use it too, even though you oppose it. So it would be forcing you to use it, or be left out of something that you oppose anyway, but would feel you need to be a part of as long as others were doing it? That is a fundamentally flawed argument and it puts me back to saying that, thus far, no non-admin opposition to the idea has yet to establish one reasonable case of why they believe they would actually be impacted by the decision.
Except you can’t tell just by standing there talking to them what type of underwear they’re wearing.
A much better analogy would be one that asks: would the tone of a conversation with a friend change because they’re wearing a clown suit instead of jeans and a t-shirt? Yes. Of course it would. No question about it.
But would it change if you were talking to them on the phone, and you didn’t know how they were dressed?
How?
They just *know *some big red shoes are propped up on the desk while little cars full of other clowns are parading around in the background, and it ruins all telephone use and communication in general forever after if it is allowed to hypothetically continue.
Better safe than sorry. We could eliminate user names so everyone is just “user 1”, “user 2”, etc. and, if needed, issue paper cups and rolls of string to those still too wary of the internet to be 100% sure. (No decorations on the cups - plain white, don’t even start!)
There are really only two things I want on the board: in-line images and avatars. I want (static) in-line images more because they open many more conversation options. Clicking on an image link (especially graphs and charts) breaks the flow of the thread when the poster refers back to it in a way video links don’t, but this isn’t the general image request thread so I won’t go into the hows and whys. However, because it does have a potential effect on the conversation and the threads you’ll see, I can also see more profound opposition to the idea (though I incredibly disagree, and feel it wasn’t that big of a deal in other boards that implemented images except for the first two weeks or so).
To oppose optional, default off avatars so profusely though, seems odd. Avatars contribute zero to the discussion except maybe someone every six months going “oh, you have a new avatar.” Now, this may seem like a reason to not bother, but they also help more visual posters reference things. Humans are simply referential animals in general, and without faces I can see the desire and need to associate one with an image (though I’m not one of those who need it, despite being a rather visual learner in general).
The “attracting the wrong crowd” argument though, is probably the worst one and I have to address it specifically. People don’t come and go SOLELY for avatars, it’s a standard feature on every site under the moon, you’re not attracting anyone with your shiny avatar function, that’s like saying you’ll attract someone to your new car because it has windows (gasp!). People will still be attracted primarily and solely by the CONTENT of the site. Nobody is going to go “this site, now this site has avatars, I’m going here no matter WHAT the people are like!” They’re going to say “wow, I like the cut of these people’s jib.” The only thing you’re doing by allowing avatars is allowing people who want them to be a little more comfortable, for whatever reason they may want them, anything from “it’s fun” to “I have a more visual memory.” You simply can’t attract the wrong crowd with it, if anything you’ll attract (and/or retain) even more people with the exact same mindset, habits, and mannerisms of the people here now, but that also happen to have a visual memory. This isn’t going to become Something Awful just because it has avatars, or any site you want to plug in. Because guess why? Those sites already have avatars, and if they like that community they’d already BE there.
No it wouldn’t. It would be like the SDMB is now. Discussions only, without dress-up goofiness. I don’t need to know, or WANT to know “how you are dressed”. I just want to hear what you have to say.
Further, if there are a bunch of other folks involved in the conversation then I definitely don’t want a situation where half of them can see that you are wearing a clown suit (and therefore judge you by it, comment on it, and be influenced by your odd choice of clothing) while the rest of us are participating “by telephone” and don’t know what the hell the you yuksters are getting on about.
Re: elmwood’s suggestions: I liked the part about avatars NEVER being allowed in the “serious forums”. I would take that just one tiny step further and create a new “non-serious” forum exclusively for playing with pictures. It’s a win-win. All the pro-avatar folks get their avatars and can talk about avatar-related, or non-avatar-related topics. Anything they want! We could call it *“The Sandbox–A Forum for Fun!!” *.
Honest to god, people do not yuk it up over avatars. I mean, in a MMP-type of thread, someone might say “hey, love your new avatar!”, but I’ve never seen anyone stop in the middle of a serious thread or debate and start exchanging witty repartee over avatars. It just doesn’t happen. For me, they tend to just be a visual cue as to who it is I’m talking to. I find it helpful. Why that makes me juvenile, not a grown-up, or is an indication that I am unable to communicate in writing, I’m not sure. Sounds like a bunch of bullshit, actually.
I agree. That is no more likely than it is right now for widespread hijacking of threads with comments about usernames or locations. Any subject under the sun could be considered a potential topic for someone to post about inappropriately in a thread. It’s irrelevant to the question of avatars.
Thank you.