This. For the most part, I don’t even read the names of the poster as I read or skim through a thread. Having been here for awhile, there are some posters whose styles are identifiable, but for me (and only for me, I’m not advising anyone else how they should approach reading message boards) I care only about the words in the post, not who posted them. By not identifying posters while reading, I hope not to bring any bias into the post (which could be very important if I’ve identified you as a Boston Red Sox or Philadelphia Eagles fan). 
Confession time, at one time I advocated no avatars. Lately, having visited more message boards I get the visual aspect avatars. Old age I guess…
but count me in on the pro-avy group.
I know it’s age for me, as well; mostly because I can’t remember book titles, anymore. I always know what author I’m reading, but I have to look at the cover if I want the name.
As far as paying for avatars vs. custom titles – I thought the point of paying for custom titles was that the mods had to go in and change them manually.
Once again, I propose a trial period, to see how avatars work out. I honestly cannot see the big deal. People act like every change around here spells doom to this place. :rolleyes:
Antinor isn’t and that’s the person I was referring to.
If the images were limited to 100x100 pixels and a format like jpg the average avatar size would be about 4k. That isn’t completely insignificant on bandwidth, but it shouldn’t be a massive strain. A picture really is worth about 1,000 words as it turns out in terms of bandwidth use since the average word in English is about 5 characters long.
So for every 800 or so words we type here we use as much bandwidth as one 100x100 avatar. It would increase the overall bandwidth use of the board but so would getting a few dozen new members who posted frequently. With some users not having avatars, others choosing not to view them, and the rest eventually having most of the avatars cached locally it probably would be quite a bit less than the theoretical maximum.
It is if you’re following a conversation.
Considering this request for a Google+ button and its immediate granting, and how the resulting thread lacks the handwringing and “OMG IT’LL ATTRACT THE WRONG CROWD!!!” responses that abounded when the idea Facebook like/share button was raised, maybe #3 should ask The Powers That Be for avatars. I’d bet the response would be much different from both the SDMB staff and the Old Bearded Ones than if one of us peons made the case for them.
On the SDMB, you have to use words to impress people. Unless you’re part of the Doperatti.
It feels like being blind, and you don’t even have the luxury of voice distinction.
When you read fiction or non-fiction, do you feel hampered by the fact that the people described therein have names but no pictures?
No. Because they’ve been fleshed out.
Yes. People in books are “fleshed out” as you continue to read about them(if the author is half-way competent, of course), as are the the people on this message board.
The point is, human memory works best with images. Does anyone dispute that?
To keep the analogy for a moment, in novels the visual appearance of characters is described in detail, allowing you to visualize them.
A bunch of people talking about politics in a thread…it’s just not as visual. It’s hard to keep track of who said what and the ebb and flow of the discussion.
Did someone contradict themselves?
Has anyone been swayed by an argument in the thread?
Was the OP a drive-by?
I’m normally aware of these things on other forums, but not on the dope.
Tell that to those who made thousands of posts in the many Game of Thrones threads in Cafe Society. Yes, they probably formulated their ideas of what a character looks like when they read the books, but did anyone say the television series shouldn’t have been made because it “dumbed down” the books?
As many of us said before, some here are visual thinkers, and would have an easier time telling who’s who if there was also some visual representation of the user. To me, many names on the SDMB can be confusing, not because they sound the same, but because they have the same theme. To me, at least, many of the RPG-ish and Tolkien-themed names all seem to blend in to one incoherent whole. I’d bet at least half of the character names seen in the LOTR trilogy have been usernames here at some time or another.
As a longtime board member, I will comment that some usernames get conflated in my mind, and it’s not because they are in any way similar, it’s just that I for some reason put the posters in the same voice. They seem similar to me. Then I remember they’re actually distinct people.
Don’t know that avatars would change that.
Or maybe the issue got hacked out in the Facebook discussion, so is already resolved.
Or maybe nobody knows what “Google+” is but everyone knows what “Facebook” is, so they know the headaches associated with it.
And again, if this were the reason that people require avatars, they would each have to be distinctly different from each other(is vB equipped to filter for this?), and avatar changes would have to be as rare as name changes.
Also, that’s not a Google+ button, as far as I can tell.
Do novels usually consist of an ensemble cast of thousands?
I’m having as much trouble processing this as you seem to with regards to how people could actually want avatars. I post to forums many, many times larger than the SDMB, and not only are duplicate avatars exceedingly rare (and a practical non-issue when they do happen), but the rate of change is slow enough that adjusting is not much more difficult than acknowledging the new haircut/color of a coworker.
Are you in the habit of daily reading every single thread in every forum?