Why the crazy avatar rules?

[Ace1337]

My avatar was recently removed. I don't even know why. Most of INTJs are very rational people so I don't think you'll mind if I ask. Why are there such strict rules for avatars? I have been to tens of forums and this the first one that has a specific size for avatars. Not limited to less than i.e. 100x100 like 99% of forums but specific to a pixel. Why is this? Is the admin suffering from some kind of a disease like Monk from the series or is there some rational explanation?

[PHS Philip]

They want to keep the forum look clean, so they require standardized-ish avatars.

[Jezebel]

Yeah, pretty much what PHS Philip said. We care about the appearance of the forum and view the avatars as part of the design since they are one of the most prominent images on the site. I don't like how avatars are displayed on most other forums so I decided to do mine differently. I've seen plenty of forums that use avatars as part of the forum design and use a consistent size; the difference is these forums usually only allow members to select avatars from their galleries and don't allow custom avatars at all. We didn't want to be that restrictive so we let the members know what we wanted and gave them the chance to format their own images, and we provided a subforum to assist those who had technical problems.

Personally, I find your whining about cropping or resizing an image to 115 by 145 pixels a bit ridiculous. It's really not that difficult to either make or get help attaining an acceptable image.

Also, if your avatar has been removed and you really don't understand what the violation was, you can either post the image here or PM an admin about it to find out why.

[Ace1337]

The forum does not allow landscape avatars. I have to use a portrait avatar. It's not a big deal, I don't even come here that often but I just think that it's too perfectionist, almost to the point of suspecting you have OCD or something.

[Nikita]

I don't remember seeing a rule against landscape avatars. The rules, I believe, are simply:

115x145
19- kb
No transparencies
No writing
No borders

[Synamon]

He meant that the shape of his avatar was landscape instead of portrait I think (145x115 instead of 115x145 for example).

[Nikita]

Oh ok, lol, I forgot about orientation.

[Ace1337]

A landscape avatar is one that has a bigger width than height isn't it? How am I going to use a landscape avatar when the height is smaller that the width? Should I rotate it clockwise?

[Nikita]

Ace - if there's a picture you want to use, I'd be happy to try and make it meet the criteria. Just post it in a post here and I'll play around with it and repost it here for you. The dimensions have to be exactly 115x145, NOT 145x115.

[Ace1337]

Here it is: http://gamer.hr/phpBB/images/avatars/464266783494ad297116e0.jpg

But I don't see how anyone could make it meet the criteria. I just pulled the picture in paint to fit 115x145 but it looked retarded because it had white space under it and on the right side so they removed it. If I put the picture in the middle it will look retarded again. I don't know which rule I broke because the avatar was less than 19kb, it had those dimensions not less not more, had no transparencies, borders or writing. It only looked stupid because of the white space but there isn't a rule that bans stupid avatars. Or is there?

[Nikita]

The white space may have counted as a border. My IE isn't opening the link.

Do you have another way of posting it here? Can you save it to your computer and use image shack or photobucket to post it here wrapped in img tags?

[Ace1337]

Oh, sorry, it's because this forum doesn't allow anyone to view if they're not registered.
Here: http://www.imagesforme.com/show.php/286909_ggggggggggg.jpg
But I don't see how you could make a landscape avatar into portrait without adding space over and under it. I should just rotate it clockwise as a protest. :D

[Nikita]

5 options with that picture. It's difficult to have great resolution with a picture so small, and it had to be cropped to meet the dimension criteria.

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/8144/acefe1.jpg http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/8151/ace1nq6.jpg http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/6929/ace2vl7.jpg http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/9739/ace3ih2.jpg http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/908/ace4sx6.jpg

[Jezebel]

You need to provide a larger image, Ace1337. The image you provided is tiny and full of compression artifacts. The image could easily be made into a portrait, but the source image you gave us to work with is too low quality to do much with. Do you know the name of the artist? (Though the quality is so low I can't tell if that is a photograph or painting).

[Ace1337]

If I find a good portrait avatar I'll update it. All these options cripple the photo so there's no point in providing a bigger version although I have it.

Thanks for the effort Nikita. ;)

[Vaiti]

Thought I might try and provide a solution.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_oM8Hv_kVl3M/SV0uudXDuZI/AAAAAAAAJZE/KMnEBeHGY0U/s144/ggggggggggg.jpg

Hope it helps.

[Nikita]

It was worth a shot. I'd like to know how Vaiti did what he did!

[Jezebel]

Thought I might try and provide a solution.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_oM8Hv_kVl3M/SV0uudXDuZI/AAAAAAAAJZE/KMnEBeHGY0U/s144/ggggggggggg.jpg

Hope it helps.

Yeah, that's the route I was going with it too:

http://intjforum.com/customavatars/requests/aquariumchild.jpg

But it could look a lot better with a higher quality source.

[Vaiti]

Clone stamp, blur tool and stitching. Just figured I would try to keep the content while adding what would be needed to meet the forum specifications for avatars.

[Synamon]

It's because INTJf has limited bandwidth and right now we host everything on-site. Increasing the avatar kb any substantial amount would cost money, otherwise I would gladly raise the limit. Have you read this thread (http://intjforum.com/showthread.php?t=7915)? If you don't have Photoshop or have any other problems, I can get the color images to the appropriate kb with minimal quality loss.
Wow, you sure did a great job with Ace's image. I need to look into Photoshop.

[HackerX]

Wow, you sure did a great job with Ace's image. I need to look into Photoshop.

Jez is a pro at photoshop.

[Ace1337]

That idea actually looks nice. I have an avatar now. :D

I still don't find these restrictions useful but if the majority is happy then I'm happy too.

Thx for the avatars Vaiti and Jez. I've decided to use Jezebel's avatar because it looks a lot better.

[Aya]

I was a little bit annoyed by the precise size that couldn't let me make a certain avatar I choose but, actually it does make the forum organized, uniform and "sight-seeing" if I can say.
In some other forum, apparently there is no rule about the size of the avatar and let me tell you that it looks very messy cause certain avatars are big size and others small so it makes the thread look like an ugly "zig-zag" sometimes.

[zibber]

Personally, I find your whining about cropping or resizing an image to 115 by 145 pixels a bit ridiculous. It's really not that difficult to either make or get help attaining an acceptable image.


It seems quite regular for someone whose avatar or post gets removed without notice to get VERY vocal about it.. I guess it is a bit of an intrusive experience, but awareness of the actual rules minimizes the chance of that ever happening.

[Jezebel]

It seems quite regular for someone whose avatar or post gets removed without notice to get VERY vocal about it.. I guess it is a bit of an intrusive experience, but awareness of the actual rules minimizes the chance of that ever happening.

I'm not sure what you mean, zibber. That quote was referencing his complaints about making an avatar a specific size. Complaining about our procedures and having a lack of awareness of our rules is a different matter. We send out PMs when avatars are removed stating the avatars were in violation of our guidelines and a copy of the avatar rules in detail. Additionally, we have our avatar rules posted above the box where the avatar is uploaded, in the FAQ, stickied in this subforum, and in an error message when someone tries to upload an avatar the wrong size. If members still don't understand the specifics of what the problem is with their avatar they can ask an administrator.

Although I do agree that awareness of the rules is good, I don't think that is the primary issue here. There will always be some people who complain when they can't do something they want no matter how clear we try to make the rules.

[Rider]

Well, my eye is gone.

::sigh::

Avatar rules I guess





Rider added to this post, 8 minutes and 47 seconds later...

Hmm...now its back.

[jonkun227]

So I'm new to this forum, and excited about it, but I'm not new to personality type, Myers-Briggs or otherwise. I find it incredible that a site dedicated to INTJs would have such specific, crippling rules about something as trivial as avatars. Seems like a real misunderstanding of the INTJ type. There are a dozen or so types who wouldn't think twice about all of the rules, but INTJs are not among those. We are known for abhorring arbitrary rules and regulations, and while these are not entirely arbitrary, they are sufficiently restrictive without clear functional purpose to cause a sense of alarm to the INTJ type.

File size limitations make sense, but why 19.5k? Why not 15k or 20k or 25k? With 5,000-ish users, only a few hundred of which are designated as "active" by the system, and less than 8,000 total posts, if a difference of 0.5k or 5k or even 25k is going to break the bank then you might just be dealing with the wrong host. There are plenty of incredibly affordable hosts out there with virtually limitless bandwidth and storage space, for as little as $10 per month. I'd happily pay for a couple months of that myself if it meant more flexible avatar "guidelines". {sic}

Image dimension limitations make sense, as an avatar that is too large can cause the site to flow poorly, but why the precise width AND height limitations? You could maintain the tight design you've achieved here with an exact width requirement but a floating height allowance. Square would be fine, for instance.

As a photographer and graphic designer in the past, I personally avoid the 3/4 - 4/5 aspect ratio as much as possible, as it's very similar to letter size paper. People get their phone bills and electric bills and Chinese takeout menus on letter size paper. I don't want my designs subliminally associated with those, so I've always gone with something dramatically different. (Not even a basic fraction of letter size, like 1/2 or 1/4 sheet.) I don't have that choice here. If I had the option of 115 wide by {between 100 and 200 pixels} tall, still keeping the 19.5k file size limitation, the site would flow fine, but allow for a broad range of personal expression that is currently inhibited.

And what's up with prohibiting transparency? Rectangular images get so boring. Transparency is fantastic. My favorite avatar, which I use all over the web, makes great use of transparency. It says a lot about me, both by the symbolic figures used and the technical quality with the transparency. But I can't use it here, among people who would appreciate it better than most other sites I've seen.

And no writing? I speak Japanese, but I guess that even though it's not Roman/Arabic characters it's still writing, so that sort of self-expression is also out.

No animation? It's rarely done well enough to be worth it, and it's almost always annoying. No complaints here.


I trust that, as an INTJ, you understand that I am debating in order to better understand, not to prove myself superior or some such nonsense that is usually assumed by those of other types.


The avatar rules do present a unique challenge, and I'm certainly up to it, but I really wish I better understood their purpose.

[Jezebel]

File size limitations make sense, but why 19.5k? Why not 15k or 20k or 25k? With 5,000-ish users, only a few hundred of which are designated as "active" by the system, and less than 8,000 total posts, if a difference of 0.5k or 5k or even 25k is going to break the bank then you might just be dealing with the wrong host. There are plenty of incredibly affordable hosts out there with virtually limitless bandwidth and storage space, for as little as $10 per month. I'd happily pay for a couple months of that myself if it meant more flexible avatar "guidelines". {sic}

I'm not sure what you're considering "active members", but members don't have to be online or recently visit for their avatars to load and use bandwidth. I'm not sure where you got that this forum has less than 8,000 total posts but there are over 300,000 posts and we're currently getting more than 8,000 in a week. This is a young forum but it is growing steadily. Most days we get between 10 and 20 new members. We are getting over 10 million hits a month and that figure increases every month. Avatar size makes a big difference as it is the primary graphic that uses up our bandwidth. We prefer to always keep growth in mind and give features to the members when it is realistic; not go overboard now and take features the members are used to away when we can't handle it anymore.

There are hosts out there that offer 'virtually limitless' bandwidth and space, but these are generally unreliable hosts that oversell (http://whreviews.com/unlimited-bandwidth.htm) and are better suited for small sites that don't get so much traffic. I'm sure the members would rather have the avatar size restriction than being placed on a cheap host and the forum being completely unavailable part of the time. There is more to resource usage than bandwidth and diskspace anyway. We have had to upgrade our host just because the database was too intensive on the server. This forum would not survive on a $10/month host even if we disabled avatars altogether.

I'm not going to respond to the rest of your post as the appearance of the avatars isn't something I care to debate and you've already lost your credibility with me. I'll just say we have different aesthetic tastes and leave it at that.

[Jezebel]

Posts about graphic file size and quality have been moved to this thread (http://intjforum.com/showthread.php?t=12543).