Would it bother you if avatars were allowed, but off by default?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Avatars came up again in the ATMB thread about making the SDMB more social. Czarcasm linked to a poll thread where people were asked if they wanted avatars or not. The majority response was negative, which confirms the prevailing view that more people prefer a text-only board than not.

However, I haven’t seen anyone ask a key question: would anyone have a problem with avatars if they were enabled but turned off by default? So, the board would look exactly the same for everyone, except for those who went into their CP and checked a box.

I’m assuming no one would have a problem with this, but I assume lots of stuff that turns out to be wrong, so I figured I’d start the thread and see what happened.

2

Would there be any general performance degredation accompanying their implementation?

3

Let’s assume not – I don’t think anyone would support them if they caused a noticeable slowdown in server performance.

4

Question to those who voted “I would prefer to continue to have avatars off for everyone.” Why?

5

Do The Powers That Be care if we “borrow” pictures from other websites without permission? If so, then the mods and admins would have to approve them individually, wouldn’t they?

6

As long as it’s not “paying members can turn off avatars, but non paying members can’t”. Of course, TPTB have every right to do that, too, but I would hate it.

7

I didn’t vote, but my answer would be “roughly for the same reason I prefer the NYT not change their font from Times New Roman to Comic Sans MS.”

8

I’m going on the assumption that they would handle it like every other message board I’ve ever seen, i.e. the responsibility for what pictures are used rests with the poster and the staff doesn’t get involved unless someone complains.

9

I want avatars off for myself. Now imagine that people start commenting on each other’s avatars or making jokes about each other’s avatars. My response: wtf is going on? And if no context is provided then I won’t know to turn on avatars so I can understand exactly wtf is going on.

10

Hey, how about avatars never on for Great Debates? Then people who only like the Great Debates portion of the website never have to worry about other people having fun here! :slight_smile:

11

Nothing is broken. Don’t fix it.

12

Welcome to my world with sigs. There is precedent for this, and it doesn’t happen often.

13

Nothing was “broken” before edits either, but the board has improved as a result. And you can make it so that the change shouldn’t impact you at all.

14

And I would assume that it is possible that a personal message board might operate under different rules than one owned by a corporation, especially one that is involved in the newsbiz-their lawyers tend to be a bit more skittish when it comes to copyright matters.
IMHO, of course. I wouldn’t mind hearing from those who would know.

15

I would like avatars. I like having faces with names. I wouldn’t mind having to turn the option on.

16

Do you mean avatars of cute kittens and puppies? Animated GIFs? Scantily-dressed female superheros? What kind?

17

This is very well said - I agree.

18

Given this board’s history, I’d be worried primarily about a performance hit.

After that, I’d be worried about otherwise perfectly good threads being peppered with posts like

the problems from which would only be compounded by the Blind not knowing what the Seers were talking about.

19

What if there was just a option for some people to get a copy of the NYT in Comic Sans while you still only ever see it in Times New Roman?

20

I don’t get the whole, “NO AVATARS!!!” crap around here. Every other board I visit has them, and I’ve never seen any problem. (And let’s not start the whole, “but we’re not LIKE other boards” okay? The SDMB is not some speshul snowflake.)
I don’t see how avatars would be a big deal. the way everyone is acting you’d think it would bring about Armageddon.