Thread:Talk:Flow/Avatars/reply (5)

Main problems with avatars: Lesser problems:
 * how much space they take up on a screen (ie. this thread would be a few inches longer, if we all had 200x200px images. The entire page would be vastly longer.)
 * knee-jerk / subconscious reaction to image content (as well-expressed by Yair rand, above. Personal photos leads to easier Ageism/Racism/Sexism/etc)
 * policing content (there are going to be thousands of people choosing borderline-offensive/inappropriate images. Pixelated porn. Photoshopped celebrities. All with plausible deniability and hence lots of arguments. Plus the thousands of national flags, team/company logos, hilarious lolcats, etc.)
 * distracting visuals (even if we ban/disable all gifs/apngs, a sea of garish colors is not helpful)
 * updates/changes (Will all our saved (old) comments get changed if we update/change/delete our avatar image? Or will we have users who have a folder of avatar images that they choose from (for each post they make) based on mood/context?)

I'm sure there will be an option to "Turn off avatar images", but I'm very worried about leaving "avatars-enabled" as the default. The text-only style of Liquidthreads/reddit/metafilter/etc seems much safer and preferable.

(The same goes for garish colorful signatures... I was hoping to see the end of these. Personal-aesthetics should be confined to one's own userpage, not forced into every discussion thread.)

Lastly, where was the older discussion(s) about Avatars? Thanks