# Sliding avatars?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [November 23, 2021, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796 "2021-11-23T06:40:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2021, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/1 "2021-11-23T06:40:04Z")
Noticed it only today - when reading a post that’s long enough so that the poster’s avatar gradually slips out of view as you scroll down to read the remainder of the post, _now_ the avatar _slides down_ as you scroll down, keeping it in view as you read the entire (longish) post.
This is a good feature for someone who’s hopefully not losing it, when sometimes I’ll forget who the bloody poster is, and have to scroll back up to refresh myself who it is again.
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### Author:  [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2021, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/2 "2021-11-23T06:43:53Z")
See this thread:
> [@What's wrong with the way posts are displaying?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-the-way-posts-are-displaying/954773):
>
> I’m not even entirely sure how to explain it, so I included a video. You’ll notice that, as I’m scrolling, the width of each individual post gets narrower (and back to the full width) as it passes through the visible area of the screen. I know things can get wonky, but what strikes me as even odder is that when it happens, the avatar stays in the same spot instead of moving with the post. I just noticed it this morning and it’s happened both on my laptop at home with firefox and my desktop at w…
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### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2021, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/3 "2021-11-23T06:52:31Z")
Thank-you.
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### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2021, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/4 "2021-11-23T16:51:54Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#):
>
> This is a good feature for someone who’s hopefully not losing it, when sometimes I’ll forget who the bloody poster is, and have to scroll back up to refresh myself who it is again.
It probably is, for people who can see the avatars well enough to tell what they are, and therefore associates the avatar with the poster.
For me, it’s just a distracting movement; though I suspect I’ll stop seeing it pretty soon. At least it doesn’t blink (I don’t seem to be able to stop seeing blinking things; other of course than by leaving the sites that have them, which is usually what I do. Sometimes I can hide them by moving the window so that the part with the blinking thing goes offscreen.)
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2021, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/5 "2021-11-23T19:27:39Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> For me, it’s just a distracting movement; though I suspect I’ll stop seeing it pretty soon. At least it doesn’t blink (I don’t seem to be able to stop seeing blinking things; other of course than by leaving the sites that have them, which is usually what I do. Sometimes I can hide them by moving the window so that the part with the blinking thing goes offscreen.)
That’s how I am. I can’t read a webpage if something is blinking. I avoided using an adblocker for a long time, when I finally caved, it was because HowStuffWorks, had multiple blinking ads on any given page. When it was just one, I could scroll it out of view or even hold my hand over it. When there was multiple things blinking at me, it was time to get rid of them. Also, that’s around the time I stopped visiting that site. Must have been 20ish years ago.
Where I’m sitting right now, the monitor of the person who sits close to me is directly in my line of sight. One of the reasons I added remote access software was so that when he leaves for the day (or leaves for more than a few minutes) I can turn off his music and close whatever website he has up that has a bunch of animated ads/graphics/gifs (without walking the 6 feet over there to do it). I’m typically here for several hours after he is and watching the same 10 second animation/video on repeat out of the corner of my eye all night gets really annoying really fast.
The funny thing about this, IMO, is that if the early days of the internet, ads hadn’t been so awful, we wouldn’t still be having an arms race between ad servers and ad blockers. A non animated/musical/pop up/malware ad (ie, just a picture) would have been fine and wouldn’t have bothered people anymore than ads in a newspaper do.
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2021, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/6 "2021-11-23T19:34:28Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#):
>
> This is a good feature for someone who’s hopefully not losing it, when sometimes I’ll forget who the bloody poster is, and have to scroll back up to refresh myself who it is again.
It doesn’t work for me, but in any case, I’d much rather see an “OP” icon next to the OP anytime they post in their own thread (and maybe even when they’re quoted).
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### Author:  [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2021, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/7 "2021-11-23T19:59:23Z")
It is very erratic on my browser (Brave, win 10). Doesn’t always scroll down
but then reappears when i scroll up…
Someone’s playing around with it.
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### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2021, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/8 "2021-11-23T20:01:39Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> I’d much rather see an “OP” icon next to the OP anytime they post in their own thread (and maybe even when they’re quoted).
That would indeed be useful.
> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> IMO, is that if the early days of the internet, ads hadn’t been so awful, we wouldn’t still be having an arms race between ad servers and ad blockers. A non animated/musical/pop up/malware ad (ie, just a picture) would have been fine and wouldn’t have bothered people anymore than ads in a newspaper do.
I doubt it’s got much to do with the early days; I think the problem started as soon as the net, for most people, was able to handle blinking and jumping things. Advertisers want to jump out and grab attention. The thing is that it backfires on them with many people, because those who can’t stand the blinking get adblockers when we wouldn’t otherwise, and/or leave the sites.
I agree that if the ads were all static pictures, and in addition didn’t take forever to load if one’s on a slow connection, I wouldn’t use a blocker. And I’d actually read some of the ads, instead of focusing away from them as fast as I can.
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### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2021, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/9 "2021-11-23T20:14:20Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> > [@Joey\_P](#):
> >
> > I’d much rather see an “OP” icon next to the OP anytime they post in their own thread (and maybe even when they’re quoted).
>
> That would indeed be useful.
Reddit has such a feature.
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2021, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/10 "2021-11-23T20:35:18Z")
[quote=“Atamasama, post:9, topic:954796, full:true”]
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> > [@Joey\_P](#):
> >
> > > I’d much rather see an “OP” icon next to the OP anytime they post in their own thread (and maybe even when they’re quoted).
> > > [/quote]
> > >
> > > That would indeed be useful.
>
> Reddit has such a feature.
That and Imgur (which is related to reddit) are where I see it most often.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2021, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/11 "2021-11-23T21:11:28Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#):
>
> Noticed it only today - when reading a post that’s long enough so that the poster’s avatar gradually slips out of view as you scroll down to read the remainder of the post, _now_ the avatar _slides down_ as you scroll down, keeping it in view as you read the entire (longish) post.
Could you link to an example?
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### Author:  [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2021, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/12 "2021-11-23T21:13:21Z")
Using SD Light, I only get the effect when scrolling up. The avatars stay static when scrolling down.
ETA: Using Sam’s Simple, Joey\_P’s first post in this thread triggered a sliding avatar when scrolling down.
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### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2021, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/13 "2021-11-23T21:29:56Z")
> [@GreysonCarlisle](#):
>
> Using SD Light, I only get the effect when scrolling up. The avatars stay static when scrolling down.
Interesting. I’m using Straight Dope Light and I get the effect when scrolling in either direction.
Firefox on a Mac desktop.
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### Author:  [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2021, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/14 "2021-11-23T21:33:38Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> > [@GreysonCarlisle](#):
> >
> > Using SD Light, I only get the effect when scrolling up. The avatars stay static when scrolling down.
>
> Interesting. I’m using Straight Dope Light and I get the effect when scrolling in either direction.
>
> Firefox on a Mac desktop.
Chrome on a PC with Windows 10 here.
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### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2021, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/15 "2021-11-23T21:36:26Z")
OK; so it might be a difference in browser and/or in operating system, but the difference isn’t that one of us is on a phone.
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### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2021, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/16 "2021-11-24T01:00:19Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Could you link to an example?
Basically any post that’s long enough to extend past the bottom of the page.
So **Stranger** ’s avatar doesn’t slide along down as you scroll all the way down?
[How long until herd immunity? - #5 by Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-herd-immunity/954417/5)
(also using Chrome on a PC with Windows 10)
ETA: Actually the avatar remains in the top left corner as one keeps on scrolling down, (so that it never disappears on ya), I should have said.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2021, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/17 "2021-11-24T02:51:04Z")
Thank you-it did the same for me (I have a similar system, btw).
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### Author:  [@TheGunIsMightierThanThePen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheGunIsMightierThanThePen)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2021, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/18 "2021-11-24T04:05:17Z")
I started experiencing this yesterday, using Discourse-classic theme on Chrome and Windows 10. The avatars always slides along with the post if I am scrolling up, but if I am scrolling down the avatars only rarely slide down, and I can’t quite figure out what combination of factors is triggering the latter.
I find it a bit distracting and annoying, but I guess I could bite my tongue and learn to live with it. Wish there was a way to turn it off in user preferences.
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### Author:  [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2021, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/19 "2021-11-24T04:44:25Z")
My avatars don’t slide at all in Vincent (Firefox, Win 10). It’s the written text of the posts that slides from side to side as I scroll, either up or down. The avatars stay fixed.
It’s awful.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2021, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/20 "2021-11-24T05:21:07Z")
Whether it activates when scrolling down seems to be dependent on how fast I scroll down. If I scroll past the avatar quickly, it doesn’t have time to get sticky. If I don’t, then it will pop in. Scrolling up, it always appears, but @codinghorror has made it pretty clear to me that Discourse is not designed for scrolling up. So it would seem odd to design for that use case.
That said, I find it way too distracting and disabled it with a single line of CSS, like I mentioned in the thread that @GreysonCarlisle mentioned. I don’t hold my breath that there will be an option to disable it.
I currently have a small number of fixes to the themes here that I use, which I’ve not released. I make links a brighter blue and underline them so they stand out more. I remove the space between a link and the little bubble that shows how many times that link has been clicked. I fix the small sans-serif MathJax text to match the regular text. And now I stop the sliding avatars. (I’ve also considered fixing the **bold** to be the exact same size as the regular text, instead of slightly bigger/smaller.)
Would releasing these things be useful to anyone besides me?
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