Do the Avatar rules irritate you you off?

[Paradox101]

I just signed up a 3 days ago and I chose an avatar that had some text. I was later sent a message by a mod to remove the text because it was against the rules. I complied by deleting the text, but I intentionally left white eraser marks where the text was as a subtle slap in the protest to the rules. Apparently that wasn't good enough and my avatar was deleted.

I then noticed that there was an INTJ artifact survey asking questions about the current avatar policy; I was amazed at how the management team of this website was doing its job, I was thinking I would be doing the same thing if I was in charge. I was so impressed that I fixed my offending avatar and re-uploaded it. The problem is I still hadn't thoroughly read the rules and I inadvertently left a black border. The next time I logged in my avatar was removed because borders are not allowed, and now the custom avatar option has been removed from my profile.

Has anyone else been irritated by this policy, or am I just a difficult person?

[Yhor]

I can see their point on some of it, but I've argued against it as well (even though I'd likely never use text or borders). It seems pointless, without intent on the part of the member, to ban these items from avatars.

[Alain Mourin]

It's annoying and pointless, the fixed size the boarder thing, no texts no letters, what the hell are they thinking? the fixed size makes sense but there are so many other forums that just automatically adjust the size of the avatars ... grrr

[Trevor Black]

I was lucky enough to get it right the first time.

- Limiting the size aids in keeping the format of the forum, but the size demanded is too specific, it could have a range slightly more loose and still not affect proper functioning in any negative way.

- The border rule is a bit silly. Though it is aesthetically pleasing to have an image big or small enough to fit the proper size without a frame, demanding strict compliance is off the scale, especially if you need an avatar that is exactly 115 x 145, instead of 115 x 130, or 100 x 145.



The other guidelines are there for a good reason.

- Transparency is not allowed because there is no compelling reason why it should be, given that some browsers do not render it and you can just as well put a solid color instead.

- Text on an avatar distracts from the post.

- Animation on an avatar distracts from the post.

- Distorted or low quality images distract from the post.

[Anima Mundi]

I have to chime in on this. I've never come across a forum that required an avatar to be an exact size. I'm having trouble making a custom avatar that meets both the pixel and kb size requirements.

[Synamon]

It's annoying and pointless, the fixed size the boarder thing, no texts no letters, what the hell are they thinking? the fixed size makes sense but there are so many other forums that just automatically adjust the size of the avatars ... grrr

I have to chime in on this. I've never come across a forum that required an avatar to be an exact size. I'm having trouble making a custom avatar that meets both the pixel and kb size requirements.

If you start a thread in this subforum and post the image you want to use, someone will be happy to make you an avatar.

[Takeru]

Though it is aesthetically pleasing to have an image big or small enough to fit the proper size without a frame, demanding strict compliance is off the scale, especially if you need an avatar that is exactly 115 x 145, instead of 115 x 130, or 100 x 145.

I have to chime in on this. I've never come across a forum that required an avatar to be an exact size. I'm having trouble making a custom avatar that meets both the pixel and kb size requirements.

It really isn't hard to get an image to fit a 115 x 145 scale. You just need to look for the right pictures to turn to an avatar. To fix the kb size issue, there are certain programs that aid in lowering it under 20kb. I think I have done about 40 or so avatars for myself. There are certainly others that I couldn't fit the scale (partly because there are parts of the image I either don't want to cut off, or that I might end up having to make a border of some kind to fit it to 115 X 145) I would either cut off certain parts that I didn't care about in the image, or forget it altogether.


- Text on an avatar distracts from the post.

- Animation on an avatar distracts from the post.

- Distorted or low quality images distract from the post.


Also, animated images could potentially slow down someone's computer who doesn't have something as grand as satellite or cable/dsl. If there comes a time when you see everyone using animated images... you know there will be from time to time that the site will feel slow.

[Anima Mundi]

I managed to find one (somewhat) suitable for the pixel size, and I used the info from the sticky at the top to get it to the right kb size. Thanks for answering my query, though!

[Trevor Black]

It really isn't hard to get an image to fit a 115 x 145 scale. You just need to look for the right pictures to turn to an avatar.

This might come off as too picky, but I do not look for right pictures to have an avatar. I already have the right pictures, very specifically purposeful, that ought to represent me on the internet.

For example, imagine that you like cars, and that you like to represent yourself with car pictures. Given that the original format of the pictures you want to use is square or wide instead of high (like most drawings and photographs are), it's troublesome to modify its size without using borders.

Let me demonstrate. How do I show the full beauty of this car?:

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/3596/carbig.jpg

Put yourself in the position that I am not happy with the crop:

http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/2825/carsmall1.jpg

Doesn't comply due to borders:

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/5642/carsmall2.jpg

The borders here are more discreet, though still present:

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/1198/carsmall3.jpg

I would allow avatar 2 and 3. What I would not allow is this:

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/9368/carsmall4.jpg

The difference is that the last one has a frame, and previous ones have no frames, have only borders.

As I said, I would not demand strict compliance to the 'no borders' rule.

[HackerX]

It's really not that difficult to understand what the avatar rules are in place. They generally fall into the following reasons:

A) The forum has to host them. The cost of shelling out avatars to users is probably quite considerable. Hence the 20kb limit. The 115x145 was selected as a reasonable size to suit the 20kb limit.
B) Advertising, evangelising or using your avatar to break one of the forums other rules. This why text is banned.
C) They shouldn't be fucking annoying. That's why animated avatars are banned (though good luck animating an avatar under 20kb). This forum is built on it's content, not on the peripherals.
D) Just an extention of C really, they shouldn't look bad. If you just say, take a 10x10 image and scale it up, it'll look horrible. If you upload an image that isn't 115x145 and expect the forum to scale it, it'll look horrible. If you use a border to compensate for the fact that you didn't use the correct size, it'll look horrible. Now, you might argue that YOU won't do any of those things, or you're a special cookie and all that, but if you give people the option, they will use it and abuse it. Give people an inch and they'll demand that mile.

You can give counter examples of things that might look ok, but you cannot give a counter example that doesn't also allow one of the above reasons to disallow said example to hold true.

[Architectonic]

Those points still don't explain why 115x145 isn't merely a maximum, rather than a fixed size.

A 103x145 avatar for example will still look fine.

If you really want, then you can also place minimum limits as well as ratio limits. This doesn't actually overcomplicate things much for the end user.

[True Rune]

It'd be a real pain in the ass if they weren't so helpful with resizing, honestly speaking. I'm not that anal about avatar restrictions, but it works here and people are used to it. If they changed it up, I'm sure there would be a mob.

[Elfrun]

Those points still don't explain why 115x145 isn't merely a maximum, rather than a fixed size.

Cause they're Te-wielding jays. Jays are anal (Kiersy told me so). Conformity removes distractions when reading posts. Distractions bother those who are anal. Ergo: 115x145.

Embrace your inner Si, man ;D