I post at a few other boards that allow small, non-animated avatars, and I like it. It helps me remember who people are. And I’m someone who can easily forget the entire plot of a movie that I saw less than a year ago, so I can use the help. 
Anyway, I voted that no, it wouldn’t bother me, and I’d turn them on.
Avatars, embedded pictures and video, but off by default. Why punish the people that like/would use those features?
I’m with **elmwood **and Ruby. The Dope is populated with fuddy duddies and people that have either never seen these features, or only seen these features implemented poorly. If they’re off by default anyways, and assuming no degradation in the board’s feeble powers (Say, can we just disable the board’s search function completely? We’re indexed on Google already.).
Nah, they’re stupid and shit and boring and pointless and if I don’t like them then nobody else should be allowed to have them
You can only put a photo in your profile if you’re a paying member, and it isn’t worth $15 for me. I also disagree that it would give those who want avatars what they’re looking for. The reason I’d like avatars is that when I’m reading posts, the names that go with the posts become a bit of a blur, and I have trouble remembering the identity of posters. For some reason, my brain just skips the poster’s names, but a small photo next to the post registers for me. It doesn’t need to be an actual photo of the person, but some image would help me recognize specific posters more often.
Yeah, no. That’s not the same thing at all. What I was actually talking about was wanting to have a visual cue right next to the username to help make the usernames more memorable. I’m good with names but I’d like to have a visual cue, also. If I have to click around for each person it would defeat the purpose I’m talking about.
For my purposes, I don’t care if the ‘face’ I mentioned is an actual photo or whatever. The avatar I’d use is the Rocky Horror Picture Show Lips.
While it might, it seems that the system described above is sufficient for every other possible infraction, including people posting too much in copyrighted excerpts. I wonder why it would be insufficient for this purpose.
Also, it may surprise everyone, but I don’t even want them. I experimented with them, and while it was nice, when I switched it back I liked it better. But I am adamantly against the idea that people should be able to veto something just because they don’t like it. You need logical reasons.
And the one about people talking about avatars: easy solution. Either don’t allow people to talk about avatars, or let you view them on the profile page, so if you feel like you don’t know what someone’s is like, you can find out without turning them on. Surely having pictures in profiles doesn’t bother you.
Also, I experimented with commenting on people’s avatars back when I used my avatar script. And nobody seemed to care.
ETA: That leads me to another idea. Implement and see what happens. I may have been vehemently against nested quotes, but I admit that I would have been better off to have just shut up and let people see what would happen. It would have been a lot more effective.
I agree. Sigs suck too, especially the unkillable ones.
Regards,
Turnip
Hell, link it to Facebook, so those that have Facebook or choose to link it can have their Facebook photo as their avatar.
Jesus, it’s an avatar, not a definitive statement of who you are as a human being.
Well I was going to make a collage of photos that included Goatse, Tubgirl, penises with sores on them, and try somehow to work in the video of Two Girls, One Cup, along with some images of aborted fetuses.
Ha! This more or less sums up the opposition around here. I mean, seriously, who gives a shit? I could take or leave avatars, but why would I be opposed to making it an option for other people?
It reminds me of opposition to same-sex marriage. Oh, I can’t think of a reason to be agin it, but I’m agin it!
There’s an option in the vBulletin admin control panel that restricts avatar uploads to only static images, even if they’re a .gif.
I have signatures turned off, but I still have to read “Regards, Shodan” and “Enjoy Steven” often enough to irritate me. I’m atavistically suspicious that allowing avatars will somehow result in some of them slipping past my having turned them off.
No. Turn off avatars, and none of them are displayed. No user-side hacks to force their display, no override for administrators and mods. No bugs have been reported about this in the vBulletin forums.
You’ve inspired me to reconsider. My avatar will be a picture of me taking a dump on your avatar’s head.
Myself, I don’t care for them. But as long as I can keep them off, I’m meh about the whole deal.
I will say this: I really like the single column thing the Dope’s got going. The other boards I’m familiar with use a two-column format, to make space for the avatar and such. When I’m skimming these boards, I end up totally losing all sense of who has said what, because I utterly ignore the left column where such information is listed. It then becomes a string of utterly anonymous voices and I quickly lose interest. I think one of the reasons I’ve stayed here so long is that I do see those names (even if I may not pay especial attention to them - sometimes they do get lost). For me, the one-column format makes it much easier for me to notice people’s names; I tend to not see them at all in two-column formats. It’s more personalized, if that makes sense.
I think that small avatars would greatly improve the board experience. Right now a huge percentage of you are anonymous, interchangeable entities to me, because I’m bad with names. Images, on the other hand, click with me very quickly. On the fathom board we have very small avatars enabled and it’s never been a problem and it really helps remember who is who.
You forgot lotus boob and lamprey fingers.
Except for those lovely people that change their avatar as often as they change their underwear. I can never keep up with those people on other sites.
Slippery slope! Slippery slope! If people are allowed to use avatars, it’ll open the doors to signature images, inline images, and blinking text! Everybody will be posting Goatse images! Dopers will be writing messages in German about eating at Applebee’s and Olive Garden, and how Jesus Christ became their personal lord and savior! It’ll lead to the breakdown of Doper society! Slippery slope! ARRRRRRGH!
No! NO!!!
We must nip this terror in the bud!