# Is this forum ALWAYS this painfully slow? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 11, 2003, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-forum-always-this-painfully-slow/187821 "2003-07-11T21:12:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2003, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-forum-always-this-painfully-slow/187821/21 "2003-07-12T05:34:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Q.E.D. \* > \*\*A avatar is an icon you can have placed beneath your username. An example of a board with avatars is [here](http://www.tforum.org/community/viewtopic.php?TopicID=166). Note it is not a vBulletin board, but a similar one. I don’t know any vB boards with this feature turned on off the top of my head. \*\* That’s very odd. I’ve never seen any vB board with it turned _off_ except for this one. [And the vBulletin site itself uses it.](http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/index.php) As do I. Another problem of avatars is that by default vBulletin stores the uploaded avatars in the database (for security reasons). This means it becomes, unfortunately, dynamic content. Thus, every single time you load a page, even if it has the same avatars on it you just saw, it has to do those same SQL queries and re-send the same jpgs or gifs. They should be cached, but it doesn’t work that way IRL. So it would be a serious bandwidth issue here. On my board, all avatars are static content (manually copied by me to a static directory), so they are cached, and not a bandwidth issue. However - can you imagine the Staff here being mailed 1000 avatars every week to upload by hand? Yeesh. Not good. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2003, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-forum-always-this-painfully-slow/187821/22 "2003-07-12T05:45:26Z")
Why is my post odd? Umm…where did I say that I had done any kind of search for vB boards with avatars turned on? I said I didn’t know one off the top of my head, and I stand by that. I provided a link to a site that I _knew_ had avatars. Period. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2003, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-forum-always-this-painfully-slow/187821/23 "2003-07-12T07:22:09Z")
Q.E.D., you don’t get out much huh? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2003, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-forum-always-this-painfully-slow/187821/24 "2003-07-12T11:27:57Z")
Someone needs some coffee, or not enough of it. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2003, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-forum-always-this-painfully-slow/187821/25 "2003-07-12T11:48:53Z")
Of course, I’d be the someone who needs coffee, after that post, huh? I meant that someone either needs more coffee or has had too much. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![FisherQueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@FisherQueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FisherQueen)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2003, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-forum-always-this-painfully-slow/187821/26 "2003-07-12T12:25:29Z")
At [Ship of Fools](http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/) , they make the avatars available for people who send them money, while those who want to post for free still participate but without pictures. It seems to me like a pretty good system for bringing in a little money without making it a pay site. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2003, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-forum-always-this-painfully-slow/187821/27 "2003-07-12T13:48:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Q.E.D. \* > \*\*Why is my post odd? Umm…where did I say that I had done any kind of search for vB boards with avatars turned on? I said I didn’t know one off the top of my head, and I stand by that. I provided a link to a site that I _knew_ had avatars. Period. \*\* I wrote and re-wrote this reply about 4 times to try to communicate that I’m not trying to be sarcastic, only factual. It’s odd because given that you’ve posted in the past of having a great wealth of experience with php-based Boards, and have even posted on how much effort it would take you to modify features of vBulletin in specific for the SDMB, I would assume that that would mean you had been actively visiting and reading the technical info in the official vBulletin community, the official vBulletin “hack” community, or on other vBulletin Boards. Both of which have always had avatars enabled. And, since every single vBulletin Board I’ve visited has avatars turned on, it just seems unusual to find one without. “Odd” isn’t the proper word then, and I apologize if that was insulting or seemed argumentative, as that was not my intent. “Unexpected”? A Mr. Spock “_Fascinating?_” It was merely a figure of speech, and I didn’t mean anything by it or intend to get into a dispute over it, so please forgive me. 🙂 The basic facts are not changed, however. Based on the past comments and official word of the Staff, the SDMB will likely never have avatars in any form. And given the way things are, that seems for the best. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2003, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-forum-always-this-painfully-slow/187821/28 "2003-07-12T14:21:23Z")
Ah. Well, all I was saying was that at that particular moment, I couldn’t think of a vB board with avatars. No more, no less. I’m a member and contributing programmer of the board I did post a link to so, naturally, I thought of that one first. But, in the interest of thoroughness, [here](http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/index.php?s=) is a vB board replete with avatars. I agree avatars off is best for _this_ board though. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2003, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-forum-always-this-painfully-slow/187821/29 "2003-07-12T14:29:40Z")
Always good to know thy facts before posting. Also good to know who posts with precision and politeness in lieu of vagueness and curtness. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2003, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-forum-always-this-painfully-slow/187821/30 "2003-07-13T18:04:19Z")
> [@](#): > > Sorry, i guess i have been spending too much time on boards that are optimized for usage… There’s such a thing as optimization within constraints. This board is very highly optimized, within the constraints of the amount of money we have. And that constraint is outside of the control of any of the regular users of this board (administrators included): It’s entirely up to the management of the Chicago Reader (Cecil’s home newspaper, which also owns this entire site). But you have no idea how much time **jdavis** , the Reader’s tech guy, has spent getting this board _just_ so, so it’s even usable at all on the very limited budget. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-forum-always-this-painfully-slow/187821.md?page=1)