Url Avatar size

[Epistolary Richard]

Just to make things clearer:

Common ground - from this and the other avatar thread at least
- Custom avatars are a good thing and should be allowed
- 10k is a suitable upper limit for them

Diverging ground - ie, members have expressed differing opinions
- Should there be a size restriction? If so, what?
- Should there be a theme to the avatars (TW, war, historical, portrait etc.)?
- Should the theme be a guideline or a requirement (ie, non-confirming avatars would be rejected)?
- Should they be available to all members (ie, instantly available upon registration)?

Some of these you might ultimately take a poll on, equally others you may consider that for technical, administrative or other reasons, need to be decided by staff members.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Crazed Rabbit that avatar is below 10 kb. My guess is that you have a different blocksize on your HardDisk from the servers.

Ah, right you are.

For the size, I would limit it to what we have already, or allow 74x74 squares. A square might break with the uniformity of the board, though. Not that that would be much of a problem, imho. Same kb limit for both sizes, though.

On requirements for getting one, I'd suggest a time and post limit. Some people, after all, can reach (for example) 500 posts very quickly, while others don't post as often. If you added a time prerequisite of, say, 3 to 6 months, that would mean that people with custom avatars have been here at least a while.

I'm not sure what a good post requirement would be, because of the aforementioned differences. Maybe 200-400 posts?

I guess it depends on what you want the avatars to represent: that you've been here a long time and have posted a lot, almost like a senior member (though not tied to senior member benefits). Or if you want people to have the option after a couple months of contributing. Personally, I'm leaning towards the end of a avatar representing more, but not being an exclusive club.

Crazed Rabbit

[Mouzafphaerre]

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My 0.01 YTL (1 YTL = 0.73 US$, 0.56 €, 0.38 £, 78.33 ¥):

- Should there be a size restriction? If so, what?

If it's dimensions what's meant by size, yes. No extremums; the custom avatars should have exactly the same dimensions with the firmware ones. Otherwise they may incite unintended meanings for the unfamiliar newbies and will harm the forum esthetically.

- Should there be a theme to the avatars (TW, war, historical, portrait etc.)?

Human or fantastic humanlike characters (Tolkien, StarTrek etc.) should they be. Ie, "not a tank but a guy in front of a tank".

- Should the theme be a guideline or a requirement (ie, non-confirming avatars would be rejected)?

Requirement in the above context.

- Should they be available to all members (ie, instantly available upon registration)?

No.


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[Uesugi Kenshin]

I think custom avatars should be gained when someone becomes a member. Then they should know the system of the org and will be able to debate (argue really) in the backroom and explore the wonderful world of custom avatrs and increased pm box size.

[ichi]

This has been my avatar on other boards for a long time



nothing fancy but its only 2.81 kb, 81x82 i think.

10K is a reasonable upper limit, and I think Uesugi Kenshin has a nice size that we should consider as the upper limit.

We should not be limited to 'headshots' or 'busts' or portraits, many current board avatars do not meet that restriction.

But I do like the wooden frame.

ichi

[TosaInu]

Hello,

Pixel size. There are a few things to consider. Do we reject different dimension sizes, because they'll generate an unesthetical look, or do we reject different sizes because it could break the topic layout?

Uesugis avatar is 150 pixels wide and about 180 in height. Such an avatar will still display the topics like they should be when the screenresolution is set to 800*600 (a fair lower limit imho). Any picture will take up as much space as it needs, but can never exceed the 150*180 size. A 120*120 picture will look good, but also a 40*60 one. These max dimensions can be changed in the code.

It's also possible to agree about 1 fixed size and any picture will be displayed at that size (regardless of whether it actually is that big). This can result in distorted pictures. The limit can be 50*74 to comply with the firmware ones, but it can also be different. Right now, the firmware ones are displayed when the user has no Urlavatar, but we can change that to displaying a/several default UrlAvatar one, for example when we agree about a fixed dimension size different from 50*74.

As you can see, it will not be possible to mess up the topics look by displaying oversized pictures. It's just a matter of esthetical taste: all same size or flexible to some degree? That's point 1 to vote, we do the main issue first and agree about the subcases later: fixed or flexible.

The wooden/metal frame. It's looking neat and is a way to ensure the picture will always be clearly displayed on all skins (black, brown, blue). Not a requirement, but generally a good practice?

There seems to be some favour for a theme, but no clearity about what that's going to be. I think we have to take one step at a time here: allow photographic or require photos to be be made non-photographic by a psp filter. That will be poll 2.

I'll create those polls and take votes. The poll will close after 2 days.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I just had an epiphany, a very pathetic and sad little epiphany, but here we go: In my opinion avatar size does not matter all that much, because there are rarely more than 2-3 avatars on the screen at once and with many posts that goes down to only one. This will not affect the aesthetics in a major way IMO. Yeah, that may not be an epiphany, but whatever close enough...

[Suraknar]

Well, I think in the present days of Higher Speed Internet, and a Majority of people sporting DSL and Cable connections we could raise a bit the limits to reflect the modern state of the Forums here.

(I am very aware that there are still people using Dial Up, and it is not meant as a demeanor, High Speed connections are not available everywhere or resonably affordable everywhere yet either).

I would tend to say 40k as a Limit, mainly because of the Signature.

I don't think an Avatar is a problem of 10k.

But with all the new features present to us(like many wonderfull Graphics Software of later years, Animated Gifs etc etc), with all the talented people that the modding sections attract, to come in and limit their expression is not a means to invite people in this fine place.

To be honest here, I was never aware of the limits in signature files, and the Avatar I always considered part of the General Theme here and so the restrain of choice never bothered me.

But recently I have been made aware of the Limits on the Signature, and to say the least I was surprised that there was one to begin with, I mean, I can understand if someone has a 200k Signarture file and they spam all over the place it can cause some bandwidth issues specially when more people read the threads, and to say nothing of our Dial up Users.

But on the other hand, we are all so used to the "apparent" freedom the Internet does offer in late years, we are also used to be Spammed with Pop Ups (I use a blocker), and Millions of Pictures, and Animated Content in all the Ubber Dupper new and verry Commercially inclined Websites, and to feel constrained down to 10K of personnal expression in a place which is suposed to give freedom peace and quiet of the Chaotic Internet of today, is somewhat frustrating.

Don't take me wrong, I am a graphics artist, I could make a new Signature in a matter of minutes, the one I have now however was made by a 75 year old friend that learned to use a Coputer and Graphics Software all by himself, at the site it is linked to, and I am just proud for his accomplishment, and have it there in most Forums sites that I register.

If it really offends however please tell me in an official manner and I will re-evaluate to accomodate appropriatelly.

Thank you

[KukriKhan]

Appreciate your input. At 37K, your current sig would meet your suggested limit of 40K.

To meet our current standard (which I must officially request you do, for now - as we have imposed it on the entire org membership, and they have complied), you would lose the (admittedly cool) waving flag:



That image comes in under 10KB, with no appreciable loss of quality, save the flag-waving. As a graphic artist, I'm certain you can do better than I.

[Suraknar]

Well,

Yes I can do good enough I think...But,

It will no longer be the work of my friend if I changed it otherwise, and there is no point Using it in that case to render hommage to his work.

On the Other hand, I understand the rules here, and as a member of quite some time now since Shogun Total War, I have loved this place.

So for now, I will justn (reluctantly) remove it all together, untill the rules are amended and this site comes up to present-day higher speed and content Internet standards.

[KukriKhan]

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this, but here goes:

No animated gifs.

That's my personal opinion, but I think that they make things seem to flashy, too sugar-coated. Even if the gif is clever, or entertaining, you can only stand that "stick-figure-attacking-the-wall" gif so many times.

I guess what it boils down to is that animated gifs could allow for a lot of abuse and cheapen the forum. If they are allowed and widely used, I might turn off the avatars. But then I lose out on the other good avatars some people may have.

Just my two cents.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Suranakar there are still people using the org on dial up. I have admittedly excellent dial up that gets 52k consistently, but back before the sig rules were put in place I had long load times on many of the threads where people had huge sigs. It will be even worse if there were lax avatar rules. 10k is a good amount of room, 15k or some othe near amount is good as well, however I do not think it should be much larger. My computer would die and anybody else still trapped in the dial up age for whatever reason will suffer the same fate.

[Epistolary Richard]

As a dial-up user who struggles to get 52k myself, I whole-heartedly emphasise, however signatures are not really the matter for debate at the moment.

To Alexander the Pretty Good I agree completely - animated gifs are extremely annoying.

But with all the new features present to us(like many wonderfull Graphics Software of later years, Animated Gifs etc etc), with all the talented people that the modding sections attract, to come in and limit their expression is not a means to invite people in this fine place.

I don't really see this discussion about custom avatars as revolving around limitation of expression. A forum that has no avatars doesn't seem to limit expression, a forum that only has system avatars doesn't seem to limit expression. This forum has entire boards set aside for off-topic talk so people can do things like post pieces of artwork for others to admire.

To be honest here, I was never aware of the limits in signature files

It's this that particularly bothers me. If someone who's obviously willing to be reasonable and abide by forum rules such as Suraknar can be infringing them without realising it, then something's wrong. I know this is moving even further off-topic than before and I can start a new thread if people prefer - but even if a size-check isn't possible before signatures are uploaded, is it at least possible to put the rules for signatures on the same page as people edit their signatures?

[Suraknar]

Yes I would have to agree here, with the Avatar and Signature combo not being very explicit as per the rules.

As for the Expression, well, expressing ones work in dedicated forums, as a measure for our Dial up Users to be informed about is good.

Yet, (and forgive me if I am not comming though fully here, English no being my first language), there is a distinction between showing one's work in a specific place and "wearing" ones work everywhere they go.

However, I am one that considers that the Quality of a Community is measured by the quality of it's members, and if these members use dial up, then it becomes the responsibility of the community to make some compromises in order to offer equal opportunity of expression to everyone of its members.

As such, I think this place, in spite of what is being vehiculated as of some time now, is the picacle of Quality of the complete Total War Community. And quality has nothing to do with how popular or quantity of members are actually visiting here.

And in that common interest to maintain this quality, I am more than willing to compromise.

So whatever the collective results maybe in terms of Avatars and ignatures turn out to be, then that is what I shall respect aswell.

Cheers!