No Avatars!

Post by **MikeC** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 8:11 am

This was announced in the Site Feedback forum, under the hijacked header "NO Avatars Please!!"

Avatars are now officially banned from SPCR.

The few members using avatars in their sigs are requested to remove them. There are lots of other sites where such avatars are welcome, go crazy there, but we would prefer they disappear from SPCR. They do not add any value to anyone's posts. This is an issue that I have been discussing with Alistair as well as long-time members of the forums who volunteer their time and energy. There are lots of other ways to express yourself here -- and in the world at large.

We would prefer that people do this voluntarily. I don't like playing policeman, it's not a welcome job, but it seems to come occasionally with the territory.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Mike Chin
SPCR Forum Admin

POLIST8 · Post by **POLIST8** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 8:13 am

So let it be written...So let it be done.

Post by **MikeC** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 8:17 am

Thanks Nathan.

Post by **Rusty075** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 11:40 am

Just a question of clarifacation, are we talking just text now, or are the various F@H stat reporters still ok?

Post by **MikeC** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 11:45 am

Rusty075 wrote:Just a question of clarifacation, are we talking just text now, or are the various F@H stat reporters still ok?

What I am opposed to are cluttering of the forums by images and information that don't have any relevance to SPCR. Seems to me that folding info is at least some what relevant & not as distracting as an arbitrary oft-repeated image.

Obviously people will tell me if they disagree.

Zhentar · Post by **Zhentar** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 3:28 pm

I disagree with you MikeC! the folding info is not "somewhat relevant", its very relevant, and in many cases, more relevant than the content of the post!

davide_casarin · Post by **davide_casarin** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 1:11 pm

what's the problem with some pic in the sig ? Do they distract the eye or fill the drives ?

bigred · Post by **bigred** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 1:31 pm

I think the main reason was because they were a distraction. This is a mature forum and if I recall correctly, some people were abusing their avatar privileges. Also in retrospect it made the forum look a lot less 'classy'.

You stay classy SPCR forum!

PhilgB · Post by **PhilgB** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 1:34 pm

I agree. Even some text-based 100% relevant sigs are distracting because of their large font and excessive length...

frosty · Post by **frosty** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 6:22 am

Yippee - great job Mike, I hate avatars, I just wish all forums had an option in view to disable them, I think it does give spcr a more mature look and they just get under my skin and distract me.

rtsai · Post by **rtsai** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 8:46 am

PhilgB wrote:I agree. Even some text-based 100% relevant sigs are distracting because of their large font and excessive length...

Speaking of sigs, everyone sigs containing computer components kind of makes it hard to search the forums for information about those components, since any sig containing that component shows up as a hit as well.

Is there any way to search forums without hitting the sig text?

Sledge · Post by **Sledge** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 9:39 am

POLIST8 wrote:So let it be written...So let it be done.

POLIST8=Ramses=Yul Brenner

POLIST8 · Post by **POLIST8** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 10:13 am

I always liked that character.

vortex222 · Post by **vortex222** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 10:22 am

i agree with mike as well. it makes everything look clean, and is dialup friendly.

my choice would be either to allow all avitars or non at all. not evn small ones. as you cant really be laying down 50 rules for avitars.

and no.... i dont want to get firefox.

POLIST8 · Post by **POLIST8** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 10:37 am

I love Mozilla.

I just find it funny that this topic is being discussed again.

I cared at one time, but I don't anymore.

msde · Post by **msde** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 2:34 pm

I'm a little confused. If you don't want avatars, why not disable them?

http://www.phpbb.com/support/guide/#section3_2_2_5

Post by **MikeC** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 3:41 pm

msde wrote:I'm a little confused. If you don't want avatars, why not disable them?

http://www.phpbb.com/support/guide/#section3_2_2_5

It is. But just because the feature is turned off in phpBB does not mean people can't have images showing up in their sigs.

spolitta · Post by **spolitta** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 11:59 pm

ok, this thread is old but I think there is need to be a reconsideration about the avatars ban.

Avatars have many benefits, one of them that is really needed for SPCR is that you will no longer need to read every user name and you will not need to memorize them. It will be just as easy as looking at a picture and that user will be registered in your brain. Next time you dont even need to look at the avatar, just read the post and your brain will scan the avatar without you knowing it.

On this forum most of the times when I'm reading a thread I quick scan for senior memeber's posts to see what they have to say about the subject, what they say is always more accurate than what the newbies say, for example I do trust MikeC when he says something is quiet as everybody has a diffrent meaning for the word Quiet.

I read people saying that this is a mature forum and avatars are not welcome. Well if its a mature forum then let its mature users to use mature avatars. and if a kid shows up with Pokiman avatar you'll know how to deal with him.

Mike, I would really appreciate if the avatars are enables again, and before saying yes or no please see what others have to say about it.

Thanks for your time.

Shadowknight · Post by **Shadowknight** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 4:55 am

My opinion, no avatars. Just skim over the names on the left side of the post. It's not like it's THAT hard to see the user name, there's no clutter to confuse your eye from seeing their name. There's even a post count if you're looking for "senior" members. If you're into particular posters, again, you can see their name quite easily. More importantly, there's no guarantee people won't use the same avatar, so it makes your argument baseless since there's no guarantee a pretty picture will automatically equal user X instead of user Y, they, or several other users, may be using the same avatar. Users on slower connections will also have to download a bunch of pictures everytime they click on a thread, making use of the forums even slower and more frustrating for them, chewing up bandwidth they would rather be minimizing for the sake of time and efficiency.

Skylined · Post by **Skylined** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 9:41 am

I totally agrre with you spolitta.
And the avatars won't make the forum look bigger, since they can be smaller than the room that a nickname takes.

Shadowknight wrote:It's not like it's THAT hard to see the user name, there's no clutter to confuse your eye from seeing their name.

It's easier to see an avatar, even it it's just 50x50.

Shadowknight wrote:There's even a post count if you're looking for "senior" members.

Posts mean nothing.

Shadowknight wrote:More importantly, there's no guarantee people won't use the same avatar, so it makes your argument baseless since there's no guarantee a pretty picture will automatically equal user X instead of user Y, they, or several other users, may be using the same avatar.

I'm in several forums and this never happened.

Shadowknight wrote:Users on slower connections will also have to download a bunch of pictures everytime they click on a thread, making use of the forums even slower and more frustrating for them, chewing up bandwidth they would rather be minimizing for the sake of time and efficiency.

Not true, they would only have to download them the first time, and avatars can be as small as 5KB, so an entire page with 20 posts is going to be 100KB of avatars.
On the other hand, once you get the avatars, they're stored in your cache, so you won't download them every time you get into a thread, all you're going to download are the avatars that aren't in your cache yet.

Shadowknight · Post by **Shadowknight** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 9:53 am

Posts mean nothing.

This is what spolitta said:

I'm reading a thread I quick scan for senior memeber's posts to see what they have to say about the subject, what they say is always more accurate than what the newbies say

So he thinks post count means something.

It's easier to see an avatar, even it it's just 50x50.

So? The names are in bold. I have an easier time seeing who a poster is by looking at their name, instead of trying to memorize who uses what avatar instead of looking at their name.

Shadowknight wrote:
More importantly, there's no guarantee people won't use the same avatar, so it makes your argument baseless since there's no guarantee a pretty picture will automatically equal user X instead of user Y, they, or several other users, may be using the same avatar.
I'm in several forums and this never happened

And I've been on several forums where this did happen.

Anyway, SPCR is geared to being minimalist and efficient. A bunch of avatars would make the forums look tacky. That's why they were banned in the first place.

spolitta · Post by **spolitta** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 10:06 am

Shadowknight wrote:
Posts mean nothing.
This is what spolitta said:

come on man, if you are unsure about something just ask, you dont have to put the words in my mouth. I never said anything about the post count and I never meant higher number of posts when I said seniors.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 10:16 am

I say no avatars.

If you're capable of reading the contents of the post, you're also capable of scanning/reading the posters' username to the left of it.

I read/post on dozens of forums every day and I really appreciate the clean look of the avatar/sig-less forums like SPCR. There's less crap to break your concentration and less scrolling needed to read the threads.

pipperoni · Post by **pipperoni** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 5:16 am

I think SPCR should develop a complex scheme where for each post you make, you get another pixel! So first posters can only choose a colour while someone who has 9 posts can make a crude tic-tac-toe board!

To be extra tricky, you could require everyone to always use each of their available pixels, thus everyone will have to update their avatar every time they post!

I'm probably break 4 forum rules with this post and will soon be banned....

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 5:46 am

I frankly miss my usual parrot avatar......almost nobody knows what a "Bluefront" actually is.

Emyr · Post by **Emyr** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 7:49 am

pipperoni wrote:To be extra tricky, you could require everyone to always use each of their available pixels, thus everyone will have to update their avatar every time they post!

The problem with this is prime numbers...

pipperoni · Post by **pipperoni** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 11:58 am

Emyr wrote:
pipperoni wrote:To be extra tricky, you could require everyone to always use each of their available pixels, thus everyone will have to update their avatar every time they post!
The problem with this is prime numbers...

Well then your avatar has to be a line, I'm sure people can come up with all sorts of interesting arrangements of alternating colours that speak loads to who you are and what you believe.

VanWaGuy · Post by **VanWaGuy** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 7:20 am

I like the add a pixel per post message. I can be a little [by my scale

] sarcastic at times, and this poked a little fun at the situation without being too over the top. But I think protocol would have required a smiley face, and not just any smiley face, but a huge, animated, 50 MB smiley face. [Obligatory smiley

]

I completely agree with the no avatar rule. This forum is not for a fashion show by those who post (although it might be for their computer systems, some of the "cable-gami" in some of the sytem pics opened my eyes to what is possible in cable routing), readers come here for technical information about computer system design decisions. As has been said, the names in bold at the left already stand out, and can be scanned in no time flat.

Would it make the information any more valuable if there was a message from MikeC over a cute puppy vs. a message from MikeC over some anime character?

Just as in building a system, keep the functionality and leave out the noise.

jharne · Post by **jharne** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:00 pm

Maybe we could come over all Web 2.0, and have voting on forum posts?