Forum s/w question: avatars - SOLVED

davejames

Hi All,

I've noticed some familiar avatars in the new Forum software, but I've also seen what appears to be Forum provided "face" avatars.

The question is, where does one choose to use the Forum provided avatars and select a particular avatar for use?

I've perused my Forum account/profile for settings to no avail.

Thanks much.

RDL2004

Find the gear icon to the right of your user name (just above the big red "New Discussion" button).
Click the gear, select "Edit profile", then look for "Change My Picture".

davejames

Rick - been there, done that. There is nothing other than to browse/upload my own picture.

Is there a secret button that I'm not seeing?

Confuzed...

RDL2004

I see what you mean. I guess the forum provided avatar feature was removed. At the start of the new forums some people had really goofy looking avatars. I had none.

Tor

AFAIK the forum looks up an avatar on gravatar.com, based on your email address or some such. Which I don't like (so I have uploaded an avatar image for myself, although a blank one, to avoid the forum forwarding anything about me, email or whatever, to that site. )

xanadu

In my avatar a Cessna C-150, N63000, a 100 hp airplane departs KCRQ at 300'/min lol. That's at sea level!

Courtney Jacobs

Parallax makes use of Gravatar to issue avatars to new members. They were also auto-assigned to existing users during the changeover from vB to Vanilla because our move did not preserve avatars.

You cannot choose your Gravatar through these forums, it is assigned uniquely to your email address. If you wish to change the Gravatar associated with your email address you can go to Gravatar's website and upload a new one.

Heater.

What I don't under stand is, why use gravatar?

How hard can it be to hash a users email or whatever plus a random salt and generate an image from it that is likely unique?

Heck, a QPR code would do.

Thus avoiding the obvious privacy concerns. And avoiding all the extra network activity.

Edit: Oh, and did I say, they are damn ugly as well.

Jim Ewald

Think of Gravatar as a DropBox for your avatar. You set it once and it is available on any number of sites where your avatar would appear. A lot of people find this to be a useful feature, which is why we support it.

Random bitmap avatars are available at GitHub or some choose to create / hijack their own.

Heater.

Gravatar is nothing like dropbox.

In the case of gravatar I did not generate the content. I did not choose to put in there. I did not choose to share it with anyone. I did not choose to have a representation of my email address shared with the world.

Certainly we can make our own avatar by whatever means. But by the time a new user, or victim of a forum upgrade like myself, does that it it's too late. Gravatar already has what it wants.

This all goes on in the background without any warning or consent.

Can you find even one person who finds gravatar useful? I'd like to speak to them.

All in all it's a shameful practice.

Courtney Jacobs

Heater we are aware of your feelings on Gravatar. Do not hijack this thread for your own purpose or you will force me to close it.

@davejames I hope we were able to answer your question.

Seairth

Edit: Deleted.

davejames

Courtney Jacobs wrote: »

@davejames I hope we were able to answer your question.

Yes Ma'am, you have - thank you.

Courtney Jacobs

This thread is now closed due to hijacking.

As per Guidelines:

Please maintain the integrity and focus of the original poster’s intent for their post; if a topic derails or if a thread is hijacked it will be subject to moderation.