Don’t want them that badly. I like them on other boards and I’d have them turned on, but I’m not going to stuff around for five minutes doing a work-around. Yes I am that lazy. Also essentially I’d like to see other’s avatars but have no great interest in making my own.
Why are the anti-avatar crowd apparently blind to the fact that they would never have to see an avatar, that it would be off by default, not their own avatar, but the ability to see ANY avatars at all?
I’m not sure if aceplace57 is wooshing or not, but he’s one of many posters complaining about avatars cluttering up the board - no it wouldn’t, because you’d have them turned off, you wouldn’t see any, ever.
Well then it’s not relevant. This board is not subjected to voters, politicians and the like. No slippery slope, if the PTB ever decide they don’t want them (after trying them out), they just unflip the switch the switch. Easy-peasy.
This is what makes it not easy. Most people (yes, even brilliant Dopers) don’t necessarily find the concept of Greasemonkey a no-brainer. And then you have to install a script on top of that.
If it was just an add-on by itself, sure, you have a case. But to add on to an add-on…
Chrome has built-in support for Greasemonkey scriptsas does Apple Safari, I’m pretty sure. So you don’t even have to get an add-on in those cases, you just put the script in and it’s avatars all the way.
…not that I’m taking sides in the debate (I really don’t care one way or the other), but for a huge number of people (I would argue the majority) these are not easy steps. Look at your first step"
Host an image somewhere
That step alone needs someone to understand what hosting an image means, then finding a suitable host, then creating a profile and logging in, then figuring out how to get the url of the image from the hosting site (and there are different ways for every site). Your first step is actually five steps: and it really isn’t that uncommon for people to post the url of their C: and wonder how come the image isn’t showing up?
It’s not beside the point. You wouldn’t “be able to turn them off”, you would, if you wanted to, have to turn them on. It would be an opt in function. Anyone stumbling across the SDMB would see it just as it is now. Everyone who didn’t like avatars would also see it just as it is now. Everyone who didn’t want the things would see no change in the board and wouldn’t have to do anything at all. It could happen and you’d never know unless you read the announcement. Tell me again how this affects you?
I would expect to at least see a blank square where the avatar would go. The message block probably would increase to accommodate it. just a WAG.
Much like Twitter. IIRC there is a blank square by default. I reluctantly added an avatar there because of the social stigma, People without avatars are perceived as clueless newbies and are the butt of jokes. Like joining an online game with the default settings.
Over on Gallifrey Base animated avatars are a special privilege for paying members. The non paying crowd gets a standard avatar. Gallifrey uses the same bulletin board software as the Dope.
I tried to PM you a test script that I made myself tonight, but you have PM’s disabled. I don’t want to post it publicly just yet until a few people try to break it. I PM’ed a copy to **PlainJain **and I’ve been using it myself all evening. If all seems to go well for her and I don’t find any typos or unforeseen issues I will I’ll post all the details here in a day or two.
