We need a poll, I like less pictures as it makes it easier for me to view at work,
Well, I’m on record as saying avatars should be a privilege of paid membership.
Gosh, I wonder how much snark that will get me off board? :rolleyes:
That kind of implies that when push comes to shove nobody really cares much about the things doesn’t it? And therefore the lack of them isn’t driving this place into the ground. And given that they would add some work for the mods (because you know some smartasses around here that like to push the rules to the limit would have avatars that would have others bitching like hell) its seems pretty reasonable to me for the TPT to say nyet.
Good one.
Probably none–that seems to be the pro-snark position. 
Maybe so but some might be afraid of greasemonkey or worry that it is some hack or security problem. Others might think that because it’s a “script” it means they need to be a programmer to use it. Maybe they missed the thread entirely and didn’t realize there was such a simple solution. I don’t know. That’s why I was asking someone who supports avatars but doesn’t use the script.
Aside from all the irrational arguments against avatars, that solution addresses the only possibly legitimate (but still unproven) objection which you state - too much additional work for the moderators. For the record several mods during the great debate a year ago said they wouldn’t mind the ‘burden’ and it would basically be the same as modding posts. If they see an avatar that breaks the rules or one is reported to them they follow the current system of note/warning/banning in whatever order or combination they deem appropriate for the situation. It is easier than moderating posts because each user has only one avatar, but might make many posts.
Thank you, newbie, for teaching us what a well-built community looks like.
I continue to maintain, however, that only bad people use avatars.
These aren’t mutually exclusive.
Folks that refuse to read illustrated books might be.
I’d love to see the avatars some of the creative people here come up with. I’m very pro-avatar.
And locations. This is a real headscratcher. So lame.
Are you talking about a picture of me in the profile space? Or when they talked about taking our pictures from the SDMB gallery and having them along side our posts. Because that wouldn’t have been an issue, as I already have a picture there. If you mean the grease-monkey script, I must confess, it seemed very confusing to me, so I opted not to use it. 
Also, I believe at the time, I wasn’t a member, and only members can have a picture in their profile. (Someone purchased me a membership, I have no idea who, or why)
Nitpick: I am a luddite, NOT a ludite! :mad:
This was a greasemonkey script that would just require you to type one line of text into your SDMB profile. You would just paste the URL to any image you have hosted anywhere and it would be displayed to anyone else running the greasemonkey script. Likewise you would see the avatar anyone else placed a URL to in their profile.
The post below from the thread I linked earlier explains the format that you use or you can just see it in my profile. (you don’t need to know any of the technical details in the quote to use the script, that is all stuff the greasemonkey script would handle automatically.
The only problem was that after finally arriving at this ingenious solution, nobody expressed any interest in using it and as far as I know **Polerius **never released the last update to the script to connect it to the user profile. The whole thing just kind of fizzled out and was forgotten due to lack of interest even though the avatar thread raged on for days.
To be clear it puts a little postage stamp-sized avatar on each of their posts like regular, message board avatars. The profile information is a text link you add to your profile that points to a hosted image somewhere that you want to use as your avatar.
The greasemonkey part is a piece of cake. It just requires installing greasemonkey (about 15 seconds) and pasting a single script in, and saving it. You never need to edit it or see it again. From then on you would see the avatars of any posters who also have added a line to their SDMB profile with links to their avatars.
Why is it not a good argument if there is some benefit?
I’ve been on forums that had partial avatar adoption and it definitely makes it easier to identify the posters that use it.
You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem.
I know I am but what are you?
Ludites would be the devotees of a certain brand of cough drop.
Ah, thank you. But, I don’t think that negates any of the arguments here, at least on the pro-avatar side.
I agree. I just find it hard to understand why so many people want avatars but so few will accept a simple workaround at least for the time being that allows us to have them right away, without pleading any case to TPTB.
In the mean time by all means keep fighting the good fight against the irrational and unfair avatar phobia that makes such a workaround necessary but why not have avatars in the mean time, anyway?
Until the day finally arrives, we can always fall back on Plan B:
Rats, I thought I was part of the precipitate…
:dubious:
So you agree that we don’t need superfluous identifiers that clutter up our posts? Having our usernames at the top of our posts should be enough, right?