Clutch, just wondering why you disabled the use of avatars. Personally I think they are pretty cool and it could be a new way to picture the different posters by the picture they choose to represent them.
Probably because they use too much resources. I don't really know. I don't even remember when they were activated. Personally, I like it better without them. They seem to always make a board look cluttered.
When you have a board with 15,000+ members, especially one that is prone to jumping from a few dozen online to 500 or 600 literally within seconds when there is breaking news, every little bit of bandwidth you can spare keeps the board up and running. Avatars work fine on boards with fewer members or on those where there aren't giant bursts of people showing up all at once, but they would be a disaster on here.
Just put a size limit on the avatars and it won't be a problem. Just a small gif image wouldn't be any different than loading a smiley each time a page loads.
"avators suck" - I agree. They are a waste of bandwidth, thus slowing down the site and causing more problems for the IT guys..
those things are pretty cheesy and IMHO would take away from the level of class that this BBS has built up. on the boards where they are allowed it always looks cluttered and like some middle school kids are the members.
Damnit, I was looking forward to having a avatar of T-Mac with pirate hat and a sword beheading a little pig, with blood coming from T-Macs mouth.
Yeah, in my opinion, avatars really take away from the cleanliness and organization of a board. Most of the time the things that members select as their avatars are just plumb r****ded anyways. Just go to realgm or any other message board that allows them and you'll see what I mean.
