will the Dope accept avatars in the future?
Let’s hope not, as this board is for people with a mental age above fourteen. Seriously, avatars are pointless, annoying and silly. Whenever the discussion has come up, the majority of members have expressed sentiments similar to mine.
Ditto Priceguy. If the board had avatars, I would have to leave. I can’t have the idiocy some (usually young teens) find witty on my screen. Pages of text, fine; stupid flashing graphics, very bad. Personally, I’d like to know how to suppress the graphic at the top of the page.
If there is a God, the answer is no.
By which logic we can conclude it will probably happen at some point. 
Just turn off “display images” in your browser settings. Admittedly this nukes all images period, but I have found that this very rarely matters and most (safe for work sections) of the internet are perfectly browsable without.
Over somebody’s dead body. Avatars represent all that is evil about the web.
Oh, don’t be silly. Everybody knows that banner ads represent all that is evil about the Web.
While I have learned never to say "never’ and never to say “always” around here, I think it’s a safe bet to assume we will not be using avatars.
If you are using Firefox, get adblock and adblock that image.
Actually, each user can choose whether they want to see avatars in their User CP. They don’t have to block anything else.
Amen brother, amen.
I might support Avatars if they were limited to a single picture, unanimated, and the size of postage stamp. I frequently speed read the board, and I rarely look at the names unless something completely off the wall is said. Even then I look at the join date/post count more often than the name of the person.
I think it would help me to get to know some of the people on here alot better. That being said, I don’t think I would encourage brining them on because they WILL be abused. I wouldn’t object if SDMB allowed people to purchase the right to use an Avatar so long as it was clear that the right would be taken away if abused.
I’m probably in the minority here though.
(For the record, when surfing boards that do allow Avatars, I adblock almost all of them, especially the big annoying ones)
From the fury of the Northmen and the coming of avatars may the good Lord deliver us!
Here’s the simple solution. Just charge a sizable fee to anyone who wants an avatar. Put the money in the SDMB account. Say that Jerry is working on it. Whenever somebody asks about an avatar, repeat that Jerry is working on it just like he is working on the other 500 things that people want changed.
That will put off seeing avatars for the lifetime of any older member. And the Reader can buy a new server with the extra money. Win-win. 
I am using Firefox, I have got Adblock, and I am using it. Luckily, I don’t need to use it to block avatars here since we don’t have any.
Please, no.
If you want avatars there is a plethora of other boards you can go to to stare at pretty little pictures.
The hamsters have enough trouble as it is with trying to deal with sticking every moron’s favourite cartoon character on every single post.
Also, I like to think we’re just a tad above that here.
I do wish we could embed external images (which shouldn’t cause too much of a bandwidth hit to the SD pipe); I know it would cause problems with stupid people adding inappropriate content and stealing bandwidth from sites other than their own, but there are times when it is just so much easier to explain something with a picture. Linking to the image is often a poor second best to having an image (or more than one) actually in the body of the text you’re writing.
But as I say, I pretty much understand why it can’t be permitted.
I thought pop-up ads represented all that is evil about the web.
I know this is a bit late, but I meant to reply to D_Odds who wanted the Straight Dope image gone… :smack:
Add my voice to the swollen chorus of dissent: if this place ever started to resemble a dating site for obscure supervillains and Japanese Dick Bruna plagiarisms, I should be forced to reconsider my membership.