Can we get 'how to enable avatars' added to the 'FAQ - Technical issues for Posting' sticky?

[Irishman]

The pro-avatar crowd has not won the right to have avatars, as there is no right to have avatars. The pro-avatar crowd has not won the debate to have the board enable the built-in avatar feature for everyone, even if set to “do not show avatars” as standard.

The pro-avatar crowd has won in the sense that they have created a fairly simple to implement work-around that allows users who want avatars, or users who wish others to see their own avatar even if they do not wish to see avatars, to do so. They have not only implemented a solution, but posted a “how to” thread in ATMB, so that other users can follow the instructions, or be directed to the thread if they are interested in avatars.

From different perspectives, there seems to be a bit of frustration from each side. From the anti-avatar folks, there seems to be an attitude of “Sheesh, they have avatars, when will it stop?” From the pro-avatar side, the attitude is “Why the vehement opposition to anything to do with avatars? We’re not forcing the board to implement the built-in feature or to advocate avatars, just give a clarification to forestall a perpetual string of newbies posting requests/complaints about avatars.”

I personally am fine with the official response to be “the board administration does not wish to implement avatars” and then the “how to” for the work-around get bumped/referenced as necessary. A note in the FAQ might forestall some threads, or it might just stir up threads arguing about the official policy and the weirdness of then mentioning a work around. Which will be the bigger headache?

[RaftPeople]

It’s a good thing we got this avatar issue nailed down because the internet moves quickly and we’ve got other pressing issues:

With the rapid advances in technology, some posters are considering using one of those new 2400 baud modems, is anyone opposed to posters using the system at that speed?

[PlainJain]

@RaftPeople

With the rapid advances in technology, some posters are considering using one of those new 2400 baud modems, is anyone opposed to posters using the system at that speed?

Contact me at my MySpace account and I’ll let you know.

[Peremensoe]

Irishman always seems so damn reasonable, especially with that calm, thoughtful-looking fellow I have assigned as his avatar in my own browser.

[CarnalK]

@Nzinga_Seated

So yeah, the pro-avees did indeed win and the anti-avees did lose. Like I said, though, it is starting to look like the pro-avees are losing their cool a bit. No need to push so hard for the sticky.

I don’t know if anyone is pushing that hard for including Avatar info in the already existent sticky on Tech info, outside of the OP. I think most of us think it’s just a bit silly not too. “Why can’t we have Avatars” comes up in ATMB every so often and it’s often a heated discussion. Seems to me you could cut down on that by simply pointing out “We are never gonna have avatars - here’s a script if you want it that bad”. I also think it’d be silly to warn everyone “There’s a script out there for Avatars so watch out 'cuz they’ll use your profile pic. And no, we aren’t going to tell you anything else”

[Fenris]

@RaftPeople

It’s a good thing we got this avatar issue nailed down because the internet moves quickly and we’ve got other pressing issues:

With the rapid advances in technology, some posters are considering using one of those new 2400 baud modems, is anyone opposed to posters using the system at that speed?

YES!! I object!

You should read at 300 baud as the makers of this Bulletin Board System intended.

If you read faster than that, you will somehow change my user experience in undefinable, but absolutely real ways that will horribly detract from my pleasure in reading the board.

Also, the owner/operator of this board has said that he would prefer not to have you read that fast on this board, and I will respect his wishes as a guest here and by “respect” I mean, I’ll try to shut down any discussion of it at once :mad:.

[Guinastasia]

@Sister_Vigilante

People who aren’t worried about posting their pictures on the internet, aren’t going to be worried if we see their image as an “avatar” beside their posts. The whole thing is a strawman.

I notice Tubadiva never answered her own question as to which mods/admins actually use the script.

Believe it or not, that actually happened at one point. People freaked at one point when someone suggested a script that would allow pictures from Arnold’s gallery next to people’s posts. Seriously. I’ll see if I can’t find the thread. It was almost surreal.

[Guinastasia]

Found it!

[RaftPeople]

@Fenris

YES!! I object!

You should read at 300 baud as the makers of this Bulletin Board System intended.

If you read faster than that, you will somehow change my user experience in undefinable, but absolutely real ways that will horribly detract from my pleasure in reading the board.

I’ve just throttled it back to 300 baud - are you noticing the difference?

[Crazyhorse]

@Guinastasia

Believe it or not, that actually happened at one point. People freaked at one point when someone suggested a script that would allow pictures from Arnold’s gallery next to people’s posts. Seriously. I’ll see if I can’t find the thread. It was almost surreal.

It was the great Avatar debate thread of 2011 - using the SDMB Image gallery as a centralized place for avatar images was the first idea for a user script. Arnold’s existing image gallery seemed like a perfect choice but in addition to the unfounded arguments against it along the lines of “I didn’t post an image there so people would be able to see it here”, Arnold had some reservations himself (more out of concern of abuse and/or bandwidth use of the server he dedicates to that project if I recall).

So it was agreed at the time that it would be a matter of courtesy to him if we didn’t actually create and distribute any organized lists of URL’s to his web server for an avatar project, but he also agreed that individually anyone is entitled to do so if they want to.

Then ntucker provided the missing link in the way of his CGI to handle getting URL’s from public profile information, and the rest is history. But as an individual user of the avatar script I do have several poster’s avatars assigned to their image at the SDMB Portrait Gallery.

[Crazyhorse]

@Guinastasia

Found it!

Oh wow, that is an even older example of the exact same argument that raged on in the 2011 thread…

[elmwood]

@RaftPeople

I’ve just throttled it back to 300 baud - are you noticing the difference?

After turning the avatar script off, the flavor of the board seems different, in some indescribable way. I’ll say it’s better, perhaps more authentic and real. If anything, there’s subtle changes in the pace, sequence and timing of posts, with posts taking on a more nuanced, immediate and lifelike character. Prose seem more defined and warmer, the individual letters more accurate.

[PlainJain]

@elmwood

After turning the avatar script off, the flavor of the board seems different, in some indescribable way. I’ll say it’s better, perhaps more authentic and real. If anything, there’s subtle changes in the pace, sequence and timing of posts, with posts taking on a more nuanced, immediate and lifelike character. Prose seem more defined and warmer, the individual letters more accurate.

You can damn near wallow it, can’t ya?

[cmyk]

Jeebus, you’d think this was Proposition 8 or something.

“We don’t want avatars tainting the traditions of the community here, and have newcomers think its okay to have avatars! Other members of this board do not have the right to redefine this institution, even if it stays within the privacy of their own browsers!”

So, I guess calling “avatars,” “community-user visualization badges” won’t make a difference.

[Patty_O_Furniture]

@elbows

Then why the rabid, frothy opposition when you’ve already won the right to avatars?

I think you’re injecting emotion into some peoples’ posts where none was intended. I haven’t seen any rabidity or frothiness anywhere in this thread. One poster seem to be kind of a dick, but based on other threads that seems to be their posting style, so that behavior seems to be unrelated to this particular topic. The rest of us just seem to be genuinely puzzled at each others’ POV.

Can we at least, in the name of honest debate, stop propagating this mistruth? There are people here who would like the board administrators to turn on the ability to view avatars. If and when that happens, then you can say they’ve “won”. Viewing internet content, modified the way I want in my own home on my browser, is a right I’ve always had. I have not ‘won’ that here.

I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over all the winning

But yes, there are a couple of misunderstandings that won’t seem to die. The one that frosts my shorts is that people keep saying “another sticky is too much…” Maybe this is just lazy reading on their part, but that’s not what was asked for. In my opinion there are already too many stickies (eight at last count) in this forum, which uglies it up quite a bit. The original request was for another line to be added to the existing sticky that tells us how to do useful things that people keep opening new threads about. Even things that the board has nothing to do with, like how to use Google to search it.

[Nzinga_Seated]

Yeah, I see your point, Patty. By ‘another sticky is too much’ what people are really saying is, “Enough already about the avatar work around. Enough. It’s a touchy topic, for whatever irrational reasons, and we have a solution that works and we don’t want a sticky, or added lines to existing stickies, we just want you to drop it, so just shut the fuck up already”.

I don’t think you should just shut the fuck up, mind you. I mean, I use the script and thank god for CrazyHorse, because without him, I would have been screwed.

I’m just trying to clarify the other side, because I can understand their point. And to be honest, I understood their point in the thread Guin linked to. I laughed because it was funny, but deep inside, I understood their point. It seemed that some of them were saying, “Yes, we slipped. We put our pics in the gallery without really thinking it all the way through. We thought maybe some of our posts would interest some to the point that they may look up our pics, which is cool. We didn’t think about the idea that any ol’ posters, any ol’ time, regardless of whether or not I made any impression on them will see my pic every single time I post. Now I just wish I had never sent my pic in and it’s too late now”.

It was funny when Spinky talked about printing out pics and pasting them to his monitor, yes. But I did understand those posters side of the story. They were incorrect, but I felt for them in an internet feelings kind of way.

So, I will make this my last post on the topic, because I realize I’m repeating myself, but I can’t help but state one more time for the money, I understand why they are just like shut the fuck up about it already.

[Crazyhorse]

There a lot of useful user scripts for the SDMB out there that have been posted in various threads over the years. There are scripts to warn about zombie threads, display inline images in posts , to display badges that are assigned to users (in a kind of avatar system I still do not fully understand), as mentioned by **spinky **there are scripts to replace a user’s signature with a quote of your own choice, and I’m sure quite a few others. They get buried in the sands of time as individual scraps of code. Nobody would really think to search for them or have any luck finding them if they wanted that functionality and had just joined the boards.

Each one script might not have warranted a sticky on its own but it would certainly be a worthwhile addition to some general help sticky to make a note about them as a group instead of one dedicated to the avatar script alone. (*perish the thought!) They were all contributions to the board made for free by other posters to serve some purpose that at least some asked for and found useful.

It would be a nice service to the guests here if TPTB made a quick reference to them in a sticky like “The SDMB does not create or support browser user scripts, but here are a few that some of our posters found useful.” but I really have no great desire to see it stickied, as noted by many it just seems like a simple and nice thing to do. The avatar question comes up often enough naturally that the thread about the script will probably get bumped fairly often even without a sticky.

[Measure_for_Measure]

I disagree with Crazyhorse with this issue, but I should say that his posts here have been reasonable and non-whiny. And taking on this project -trying in his own way to improve the board experience- deserves a tip of the hat.

At the risk of beating dead equines, I’d like to discuss the security issue, and leave aside less serious topics.

@Crazyhorse

This is entirely incorrect. The only data sent between the user script, the SDMB, and the avatar server is the SDMB user ID which you can see by mousing over anyone’s user name, and the URL to their avatar if one exists. There is absolutely no risk of having a “server hacked” and revealing any data other than a user ID and the URL to their avatar.

That’s not the attack vector I had in mind. What I imagined is that some snit would edit the script, adding malicious code. Yes, that would involve hacking into the system. No, it wouldn’t affect current users: it would only affect those who download the errant code before the problem is detected. Props for not invoking the auto-update feature in Greasemonkey.

What you are basically saying is that you don’t understand the technical or security details so therefore it must be a risk. I would never ask you to use avatars if you don’t want to and likewise you should probably accept that there are many who do understand the technical reasons that there isn’t any such risk.

Oh absolutely: I do not understand the technical or security details. But I also see no evidence that this scheme has been vetted by a security professional. Brian Krebs notes that too often software security considerations are handled by those lacking specialist knowledge, to the detriment of the organization and its stakeholders.

I know that IT departments are wary of code written by unvetted organizations. There are solid reasons why greasemonkey isn’t permitted in many offices.

Look, I think the code is probably fine. But I also think that the administrators of this board shouldn’t be promoting this stuff or posting stickies, at least unless a formal code review procedure is in place.

…you can’t possibly have a security concern if you aren’t using the script.

Er. I agree? I hope I didn’t give another impression.

[Crazyhorse]

@Measure_for_Measure

I disagree with Crazyhorse with this issue, but I should say that his posts here have been reasonable and non-whiny. And taking on this project -trying in his own way to improve the board experience- deserves a tip of the hat.

Thank you.

@Measure_for_Measure

At the risk of beating dead equines, I’d like to discuss the security issue, and leave aside less serious topics. That’s not the attack vector I had in mind. What I imagined is that some snit would edit the script, adding malicious code. Yes, that would involve hacking into the system. No, it wouldn’t affect current users: it would only affect those who download the errant code before the problem is detected. Props for not invoking the auto-update feature in Greasemonkey.

That would require hacking into the website the usercript is stored in, editing the code which would instantly trigger a new modification date and add an entry to the version history that userscripts.org maintains automatically, and the hacked script might make it about 20 minutes before it was discovered and posted about here. There is about an equal possibility the SDMB could just be hacked directly with no need to go through such a roundabout way.

Additionally, browsers go to some lengths to protect users from malicious user scripts with a layer of security between the the script and the browsers inner workings. So for example username/password entries for websites can’t be stolen with a userscript, and various other data the browser considers too confidential to allow user scripts accces. This hypothetical malicious script might provide a hacker with an ability to deface web pages you view, or maybe at worst capture the contents of pages you view for malicious use (if you didn’t notice the huge amount of code in the script that would be required to accomplish this before installing it). Such is the risk with every website you visit even without user scripts. They may get hacked at the server and someone may capture everything you put into a website including passwords and credit card info, etc. that the user script has no access to.

@Measure_for_Measure

Oh absolutely: I do not understand the technical or security details. But I also see no evidence that this scheme has been vetted by a security professional. Brian Krebs notes that too often software security considerations are handled by those lacking specialist knowledge, to the detriment of the organization and its stakeholders.

I wasn’t aware that the SDMB itself had been vetted by a security professional either. So before you install a SDMB user script worry about that. It isn’t easy to hack anything to a devastating end with a browser user script to begin with and even what damage could potentially be done is miniscule compared to the amount of information that we already put in this and other websites directly every day.

@Measure_for_Measure

I know that IT departments are wary of code written by unvetted organizations. There are solid reasons why greasemonkey isn’t permitted in many offices.

Look, I think the code is probably fine. But I also think that the administrators of this board shouldn’t be promoting this stuff or posting stickies, at least unless a formal code review procedure is in place. Er. I agree? I hope I didn’t give another impression.

Yes and many IT departments are wary of enabling javascript at all, or accepting cookies, or any number of other things that would cripple the home web browsing experience. It is a dangerous world - we all make decisions about risk versus reward in every facet of life. I don’t always take chances, but when I do, I prefer Avatars.

There is a sticky about the SDMB Portrait Gallery and someone could hack Arnold’s server, install malicious code there, and steal username/photo combinations to be used as fake dating profiles on a Nigerian single’s website, then demanding credit card payment to anyone who wants their picture taken down. You play the game you take the chances.

[Jragon]

@Nzinga_Seated

Yeah, I see your point, Patty. By ‘another sticky is too much’ what people are really saying is, “Enough already about the avatar work around. Enough. It’s a touchy topic, for whatever irrational reasons, and we have a solution that works and we don’t want a sticky, or added lines to existing stickies, we just want you to drop it, so just shut the fuck up already”.

I don’t think you should just shut the fuck up, mind you. I mean, I use the script and thank god for CrazyHorse, because without him, I would have been screwed.

I’m just trying to clarify the other side, because I can understand their point. And to be honest, I understood their point in the thread Guin linked to. I laughed because it was funny, but deep inside, I understood their point. It seemed that some of them were saying, “Yes, we slipped. We put our pics in the gallery without really thinking it all the way through. We thought maybe some of our posts would interest some to the point that they may look up our pics, which is cool. We didn’t think about the idea that any ol’ posters, any ol’ time, regardless of whether or not I made any impression on them will see my pic every single time I post. Now I just wish I had never sent my pic in and it’s too late now”.

It was funny when Spinky talked about printing out pics and pasting them to his monitor, yes. But I did understand those posters side of the story. They were incorrect, but I felt for them in an internet feelings kind of way.

So, I will make this my last post on the topic, because I realize I’m repeating myself, but I can’t help but state one more time for the money, I understand why they are just like shut the fuck up about it already.

You’re right, it’s over, we won!

Goes to campaign for [img] tags