I like the idea of custom avatars.
I think it's important to make sure that custom avatars don't adversely affect performance for us 56K users, and also that they don't distort the dimensions of posts.
I have never liked the idea of the privilege to use special or custom avatars being linked to a patron's post count. This encourages spam. I have been a board member for a while now, and have contributed my fair share to the board, particularly to the Sword Dojo. Yet look at my post count--I refuse to make a habit of spamming just to get my postcount up.
Because custom avatars are so desireable by the younger, rowdier folks in particular, I think one way to leverage them is to use them as an incentive for gentlemanly behavior on the board. This doesn't require a judgement call up front--maybe once you become a regular member you can have a custom avatar. If you ever get a serious warning, your avatar would be suspended for a period of time, the worse the offense, the longer the time. This would be in addition to temporary banning etc. I think this would encourage good conduct a bit. Maybe it would be funny to make a special avatar for those who are "in jail" because they behaved badly, like a person in jail clothes or wearing a dunce cap or something like that.
I have mixed feelings about leaving it up to patrons to make sure the dimensions and file sizes of their avatars comply with forum standards. You've had problems with this regarding sigs in the past, and I think you will have problems with avatars too if you don't build in some automated controls. I think it's important to balance usability for the patrons with manageability for staff. If you don't think it wil be a problem to shut down custom avatars that exceed the standards before they mess up the experience of board users, then I'm fine with it. But if it's going to take days to correct abusers, then I think automated dimension and file size management would be better.
My two cents ... .
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