Thank you both. I am not very adventurous on the internet so I didn’t know how widespread they are. I will say that the part of the linked discussion that I read seemed to take the possibility of possible legal issues more seriously.
I was considering changing the one I started with to one that is very closely guarded by my former employer, but I think I’ll keep the one I have. It’s more personal.
Testing
Avatars turned on? Cecil must be turning in his grave.
Testing.
Edit to add: Yay, it worked. Thanks, Tuba.
Damn, people, next thing you know we’ll have inline images, like buttons, and a rating system for posts. 
'Splain to me how the weekly “Friends of Cecil” thing is supposed to work? What’s the thinking there? I have a big fear of FOMO. If something’s cool, I want to be in on it, but sometimes I’m utterly clueless…
Woof!
Thanks, Tuba! 
Testing, 1, 2, 3
Yes, I just went back and re-read some old posts, and now everything sounds 27% stupider! 
Not.
Avatars just lend the board some whimsical color, both figuratively and literally. I think most of us appreciate it.
As I think someone already said, virtually any UI problem is invariably due to the new skin. It’s been a pain right from the start, and the best thing Ed did, at the urging of many posters, was re-enable the old one as an option. Unfortunately it seems that once that happened, all efforts to fix the problems with the new one were abandoned. The only useful thing it does IMHO is allegedly raise the site’s Google ranking because of the mobile features, but I never use it, and I think it’s unfortunate that this is how non-registered readers see the site.
It’s just a way to donate money. I think like donating to NPR, Tuba plans on giving little thank you gifts like coffee mugs or tote bags for becoming a “Friend”. And it’s not weekly. It’s whenever you want, once per day max.
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=860107
Well, thank you very much! I admit I was tempted to do something crass with it. Maybe later.
PNG has the advantage over JPEG that you can have a transparent background, like in my avatar. You can in a GIF as well, but they’re more of a pain to work with in Photoshop.
I like the small size – they’re like little logos for each user. If the majority want them bigger, who am I to object, but I do think much bigger avatars would make the site look cluttered. I’m fine with 50x50.
You’ve done it, you maniacs! You’ve only gone and done it!
You forgot to damn them to hell.
Thank you.
I’d like to help you, son, but you’re too young to vote.
(Judging by your picture.)
That and GIF only has two choices: transparent or opaque. PNG allows translucency, so you can get some nice antialiasing (no stairstep patterns on the edges).
One issue is that the default 32-bit PNG is larger than a GIF. But, if you can save them as an 8-bit image, they almost always smaller. (Except when the image is really small, like 16x16 pixels.)
Yay…
I was expecting more of a ball, weren’t you?