Over on a discussion board for hockey the members are now blocking signatures and avatars. As there is no limit to bad taste.
People’s brains work differently. If you don’t have problems telling people apart with their names only, that’s great. But some people find it easier when they have some sort of image to help them with this, and this doesn’t mean that “we [don’t] want them here.”
Although Czarcasm is correct that for this to work best, avatars should be like user names: not easily changeable.
I was think ing of changing my Username to <:8(||||}~~
Then my name would be my avatar – Armadillo!
Personally, I think avatars should be an extra charge, like custom titles are now.
Well, I’ve had my eye on Yorick73. Damn whippersnapper.
Oops, I see he joined a year before me. ahem Never mind.
And here’s how you limit it. It’s customizable for every user group, too. The Powers The Be can also do this for their default registration option.
When displayed, avatars also don’t interrupt the flow of a message when a vBulletin-based site uses the classic thread layout (username, title, avatar, location and post count to the left of a post, instead of above it). Here’s what it might look like on the Dope. Is that really that horrible?
I’m such a sucker for getting pulled into another avatar thread. Sigh.
Yes it is, and yes you are. 
I do apologize, y’all. I should have done a search.
A lot of other boards don’t have good moderating in general. Spam posts sit for weeks unnoticed, posts eventually determined to violate some rule of the board are just deleted without note or discussion, there usually isn’t an ATMB where users can make public gripes about moderator decisions and submit them to the [del]peanut gallery[/del] other posters for review.
We on the other hand would have a week-long discussion every time one image was deemed to be offensive or copyrighted or taunting to another user, etc. and deleted by a mod.
As a board user I am in favor of avatars. But it is hard to imagine how images could be moderated with the level of thoughtfulness that textual posts are moderated at TSDMB. It would have to be something like Una suggested above: no frills, no discussion, zero overhead moderating. If a mod believes an image violates any rule or guideline it just gets deleted without discussion and the user gets a mod warning. Enough warnings leads to being banned whatever they were for so it shouldn’t require a new type of warning or being insta banned on the first offense.
Even the insta-ban solution sounds like it would be hours of extra mod work per week. There would be constant appeals to these actions even though they were stated as being final. Mods would have to check each image, not just for blatant violations but subtle ones (an obscure copyrighted work, reflectoporn, etc.)
This is a far more - oh, what’s the word - intelligent set of arguments.
Making avatars a part of membership would do a couple of other good things. It would force people to put money where their mouths are. If they really supported the Board they would be paying for it now, after all. And it might end all the threads in which people complain about ads - which, as has been pointed out many times, they would never see if they became members. I don’t believe that it would attract many more new members than we get now, but it would force additional revenue just from the freeloaders today.
What I totally disagree with is your last paragraph. Most people don’t have a clue what is a copyright violation in an avatar and I’m 100% confident that includes every single moderator. I don’t know how other boards handle it, but my guess is that they ignore the issue most of the time. That makes instant bans impossible, now and in the future. I can’t imagine how the mods would handle a couple of thousand avatars popping up at once but if they want to approve them they shouldn’t get to complain about the work involved.
Here’s another suggestion: limit any threads about avatars to a few forums.
I don’t understand the concept of people needing avatars to tell posters apart, but I will concede that I’m a non-visual word person, so if people tell me it’s a problem then it is. The counter to it is that avatars instantly lower the apparent IQ of a site by half. We’re getting lots of new people from Google searches. They won’t be able to turn off avatars, so that’s the first thing they’ll see about the site. As a non-visual word person, that’s enough for me to come down against avatars forever.
More revenue is the only argument that would convince me. We haven’t heard any moaning from Ed for a while so we don’t know how bad or good the current picture is. Let’s get some actual facts.
Yes, we’ll have a lot more 14-year-olds. Maybe real ones this time.
Hmmm. Says “y’all” but is in Minnesota. Maybe southern Minnesota? 
The internet has nationalized me. 
I’m one of those people who talk to people in other states, and have an accent by the end of the call.
Unless I’m looking for something very specific, yes it is.
And when I am looking for that something specific and I see everyone’s avatars and whatnot (usually because I am just a guest), I find what I want and get out, never to return.
Like when we’re talking about say, pan-fried semen, or squeeing over cat pictures? (Hey, there’s one – how many cute cat avatars will we see?)
Currently, images are enabled in the Marketplace forum (which everyone can read, but only subscribers are allowed to start threads in) and the various moderation boards (which only the moderation staff can read).
Here’s the rule for the Marketplace images: “The person starting the thread may post images that are relevant to the item or service being offered. You may only post pictures if you are the OP (that is, in your own threads). Please use this feature judiciously. We may review this policy later.”
As a general rule, spammers don’t custom write posts for a specific message board. They have a prewritten post, and their goal is to hit as many message boards as possible as quickly as possible. Some will post just once on a particular MB, while others will post in every forum of a message board. And then we have the ones who actually aren’t commercial spammers, but who want to Get Their Message Out. These people tend to post about God, or the Trilateral Commission, or the New World Order. I remember one guy was convinced that all workplaces had gigolos for the female workers. He’d hit this place every now and then. These true believers will generally come back to the same message boards, posting the same thing, on a regular basis.
And personally, when I find a spammer who’s posted once or twice, and is in the process of creating a new thread, I enjoy banning him/her right on the spot.
Fair use doctrine. From Wikipedia:
I’ve NEVER heard of a forum operator getting sued by … oh, Fox, because someone is using a Bart Simpson avatar. Can anyone find a case where it’s happened? Those with access to Lexis/Nexis or Westlaw: any case where a message board got sued because an avatar was perceived to violate copyright law? Anything? I tried searching, and found nothing.
Anyhow, in talking with other message board operators, there seems to be agreement that small avatars fall under the fair use doctrine. I’d like to hear an argument about how they don’t fall under the fair use doctrine; every time I’ve bought this up in the past, nobody has addressed it.
Yea, I don’t like that. A lot of the reason I don’t like it is I do a lot of my Dope reading on my phone and really don’t need space being taken up by things like that.
I’m as guilty as everybody else about this. I blindly copied the talk about copyright from earlier posts. I still know don’t what is acceptable fair use for copyrighted images, but a half second’s thought should have told me that the proper question to ask is: What about trademark violation? There is no such thing as fair use for trademarks. Trademarks must be pursued diligently (which isn’t the technical term, but it’s late). I will bet large sums without searching that people have been told to stop using trademarks. I know that in its guidelines Twitter forbids the use of trademarked avatars - or copyrighted ones, for that matter. These cases virtually never go to lawsuits, because they can’t be won and the other side always has deeper pockets.
Well then, you’d have the option to disable it. See? Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.
Besides, do you really think we’d have a problem around HERE with goatsec? I predict cats, Monty Python, lots of RPG games, and different sports teams (depending on which season it is. Baseball icons would be popular now, then people would switch to their football teams around the Super Bowl, etc) I’d probably use a Penguins-related one during hockey season.
You’d see a LOT of nerdy stuff. And very few boards allow animated avatars. You could even have ONE thread in ATMB where you could request that people make icons for you. I for one would be more than happy to do so.