The best analogy is the sticky about the SDMB Portrait Gallery, hosted by **Arnold Winkelried **
That is a third-party, independent effort that allows SDMB users to post images of themselves if they choose to, and for others to view those images. It could be described as an off-board avatar system, not sponsored or supported by the SDMB staff in any official way, though participated in by some.
Back in the day, the discussion about making a sticky with information about that third-party project went down very differently:
While it doesn’t really matter to me if the Avatar script is stickied or not, I would like to point out that it, too, is the result of a lot of time and effort by several posters to provide a requested service that a large number of posters find very useful.
The avatar system exists through the generosity of several posters donating their time, scripting, and even a server to handle the avatar requests - all gratis. I wouldn’t expect huge thanks from the staff or users of the script but it certainly isn’t something that should be considered a sore subject, or something just barely being ‘tolerated’ by the staff. It is a good thing! It does what a lot of posters want for free, with no downside.