I think the figure of 20% is based on the number of posts that have avatars by the poster’s name when using the script. It may be even higher, but it varies from thread to thread.
The disconnect here is that doesn’t mean 20% (or whatever) of the board is using this avatar script. A large number of some of the most frequent posters already had an avatar image uploaded to their profile as a result of being charter members, mods, admins, SDSAB members, or any other member group that has been allowed to upload avatar images to their profiles all along.
These avatars, that have been there all along, now appear in posts to everyone running the Avatar script in addition to those avatars that have been linked in the profiles of script users by adding the line "SDMB Avatar: <url> "
For example I see Czarcasm’s avatar by his posts even though he isn’t (I don’t think) using the avatar script. He hasn’t added "SDMB Avatar: " to his profile, but has already uploaded an avatar image directly because he was allowed to do so as a charter member/mod. As more people use the script there will be more avatars in general but there was already a pretty high percentage of posters with avatars to begin with, they just don’t appear in threads without using the script.
Drunky Smurf, you are one of the few users whose username already conjured up the same clear image you ended up using as your avatar in my head, making it almost superfluous
To do this you need to edit the script. It is heavily commented with instructions about how to do so, but basically you assign an avatar image to any poster by adding them to a list in the script in the format:
‘SDMB Username’ : ‘<URL To Image>’
For example to assign an avatar to me instead of seeing the one that I selected, you could add:
I noticed that the CGI wasn’t responding for a few minutes and now it seems to be again. I think occasionally **ntucker’s **server might be busy doing something else - rebooting or doing a backup or something. During times the CGI doesn’t respond, custom avatars you’ve entered manually still work, but automatically getting them from user’s profiles doesn’t.
This happened a few days ago and ntucker was pretty sure the script wasn’t overloading his server, but it was already working again by then so I don’t know if he investigated any other possible causes.
That was actually me dorking with the configuration this time; sorry for the inconvenience. I upgraded some software on my server and hosed up fastcgi for a few minutes (twice). All should be good now.
Can we have a “Make me an avatar” thread? That way we keep it all confined to one thread, and then all the dire predictions of endless comments of peoples’ avatars derailing threads won’t happen.
That is probably a good idea. I don’t know if it should go in ATMB because it isn’t about debating the avatar issue, but just discussion of the user script - which I guess would be MPSIMS. But it is related to using the board so it’s anyone’s call.
I do have one question. When I went to install the script and said ok to Chrome a little box popped up asking to install and that little box also said something like “Add SDMB Avatars? It can access: Your data on all websites.”
So whats that mean? You guys better not be going to my porn sites and stealing my passwords. :dubious:
It is an attention grabbing alert box, and it has a good reason to exist but this script is open-source, human-readable, and isn’t up to any shenanigans. Here is a discussion on the google forums about it. (there are probably more but this was the first to come up in a search). The alert is displayed for any user script that changes the contents of the web pages you view. In this case the SDMB Avatar script only becomes active when viewing pages in the directory ‘sdmb’ on this website. You can see this at the top of the script:
“@includeStraight Dope Message Board - Your direct line to thousands of the smartest, hippest people on the planet, plus a few total dipsticks.*”
So unless you’re stashing your porn on the SDMB you’re safe.
(and even if you were it would be impossible to steal it with this particular script and any attempt to do so would be visible to all in the source code).
I was anti-avi. I hate smilies, so I thought I would hate avatars. Turns out, I don’t. But when I tried to link an avatar from my flickr, it doesn’t work.
I see your built-in avatar, but to use a different one from flickr just put the URL anywhere in your SDMB profile (under bio, location, interests, etc.) in the format:
I used one from my flickr, and I had to make sure to reference the proper file. Flickr will give you a bunch of resized options in jpg format. I would go to the size options, and pick the one that matches the original size. Open the image in a new tab, and copy that url.
All kidding aside, I encounter this sort of thing not only in java based websites but also in apps and facebook related logins. It’s often not obvious why a script or app needs certain specific permissions. I wonder how this can be mitigated.
CarnalK’s avatar is interesting. It displays one thing on the screen, but when you save it to disk, it displays something else. Not clear how he did that.
Apropos nothing, my SDMB avatar script stopped working today. So I uninstalled it. I had only tried it out of solidarity with those who had to view my hideous animated avatar, now removed.
It looks like **CarnalK **has their avatar hosted on a site that doesn’t allow image linking. If you go to the URL in their profile the image loads, but their avatar displays as a ‘freepages’ notice that remote image linking isn’t allowed. There are dozens of sites that not only allow but specialize in remote image linking.
Your animated avatar wouldn’t bother anyone who doesn’t want to see it. That’s the beauty of choice.
I haven’t noticed any problems with avatars loading today but occasionally the server goes down for short times and comes right back. You probably just hit one of those times.
