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The MAZZTer
Death Star
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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 Posted: Sep 25, 2003 18:51 Post subject: :( |
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I want an avatar. 
Whole new forum... whole new policy toward avatars? (Maybe?) 
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Fenwar
Admiral Ackbar
Joined: 15 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 25, 2003 22:51 Post subject: |
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They're one of the ideas that has been least popular among DF-21 regulars though.
We could introduce them one day, eventually. But let's take things one step at a time
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NathanWilson
Dark Trooper Phase 1
Joined: 22 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 25, 2003 22:54 Post subject: |
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Avatars might be nice, but they would eat a bit more bandwidth (as people will quickly point out), and there is always the question of whether they would be appropriate (I'm not saying people here wouldn't be fine, just that it could be a point down the road).
Personally, I'd like to see them, but what's a few more months or years after we've waited this long?
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AlexG
Dark Trooper Phase 1
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 26, 2003 03:09 Post subject: |
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Doesnt matter to me either way, just as long as all the posts in this thread end with the winky man.
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The MAZZTer
Death Star
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 26, 2003 10:54 Post subject: |
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... WOAH!!! O_O
I didn't notice that...
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Tom Manning
Trandoshan
Joined: 27 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 27, 2003 16:15 Post subject: |
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Okay, since Tom is an idiot and does not know anything, could some one explain what an avatar is?
Oh, and on requests, how about little pictures under our user name like at the Lucasfourums?
and maybe our post count right under our name, and maybe. . .
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Tom Manning
For all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you, Stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn: Return of the King |
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Fenwar
Admiral Ackbar
Joined: 15 Sep 2003
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The MAZZTer
Death Star
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 27, 2003 18:15 Post subject: |
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Actually, these are just smilies                 
Avatars are slightly bigger images that users pick themselves, that can say something about what they look like (ex a photo), what they like (ex a star wars image or photo), or something about their personality (ex Daffy Duck ).
This is my avatar: 
I especially like it because it changes every time you refresh the page.
[Edit: Oh, they usually appear on the left, under a user's name and info]
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http://www.mzzt.net/ | I am a respectable admin with a respectable sig. |
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Tom Manning
Trandoshan
Joined: 27 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 27, 2003 19:30 Post subject: |
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Yeah, I realised that I was thinking of the same thing, I just didn't know the term.
I need either a pic of me wearing my Fadora, looking like a cowboy, or a pic of Bon Jovi
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Tom Manning
For all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you, Stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn: Return of the King |
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Matt K
Dark Trooper Phase 1
Joined: 27 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 27, 2003 21:11 Post subject: |
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In general, avatars don't use up as much badnwidth as one might think, as long as they're kept to a reasonable size (50x50 or 100x100). They're pretty common nowadays.
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Tom Manning
Trandoshan
Joined: 27 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 28, 2003 00:13 Post subject: |
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Where do you host the pics? if you use your own that is.
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Tom Manning
For all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you, Stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn: Return of the King |
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AlexG
Dark Trooper Phase 1
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 28, 2003 04:31 Post subject: Winky Men! |
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AARGH!
5 of you missed winky men! Since I'm not a Feedback moderator I cant change that, but I can make up for it.
There.
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This thread is going to die... isn't it? |
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Casey Neumiller
Gamorrean
Joined: 24 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 28, 2003 05:02 Post subject: |
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:: whap ::
Shaddup, Alex.
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The MAZZTer
Death Star
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 28, 2003 11:21 Post subject: |
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Har har.
Tom, usually there are a selection of avatars to choose from. Fenwar chatted to me recently on chat.df-21.org (that was before the fool thing corrupted my password =/), and he was thinking of putting some Dark Forces sprites up as avatars... these would be on the server in this case, all you'd have to do is pick one out.
Most forums also have the ability to link remotely to avatars, like I have done with my thingy up thar. Except in this case, I have linked to a PHP script, and it surprises me that some forums let me do that... not one has rejected it so far... probably because they can't tell it's a script. Hmm....
A few forums also let the user upload an avatar from their computer to the server, for their use only (noone elses), so if a user doesn't have a website they still can have their own custom avatar.
And I agree Matt K, avatars are only annoying when they're too big (or when someone links to tripod and you get that annoying "Hosted by Tripod" instead of their avatar... and then they don't bother to try to fix it :/)
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http://www.mzzt.net/ | I am a respectable admin with a respectable sig. |
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Nottheking
Kell Dragon
Joined: 29 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 29, 2003 19:02 Post subject: |
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I support the idea of us having avatars. Personally, I think it might be possible for us each to upload our own (since we're just about the F***ing smallest board on the net...).
To minimize the bandwidth problem, we should make sure to use 8-bit palletized images, instead of the 24-bit true color... It would cut download time by 66%... And it would fit in with Dark Forces SO much better!
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Matt H
Dark Trooper Phase 1
Joined: 24 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 29, 2003 20:06 Post subject: |
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Nottheking wrote:
To minimize the bandwidth problem, we should make sure to use 8-bit palletized images, instead of the 24-bit true color... It would cut download time by 66%... And it would fit in with Dark Forces SO much better!
Not necessarily about the size. If the JPEG compression was low enough, the size could be as low or lower than the .GIF image. It's depends on the picture. (You might also make the .GIFs lower than 8-bit.) I do agree that 8-bit (or lower) would fit in with DF better.
I'm a little torn on the subject of avatars. I generally don't think they're necessary and can be annoying sometimes. But I kind of like the DF-sprites idea. I was actually thinking it might be cool to have the avatars automatically match with the rank. But that, or even letting people choose from a select list of DF-related Avatars, won't give people the outlet of personal expression that people often seem to want in avitars.
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Fenwar
Admiral Ackbar
Joined: 15 Sep 2003
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Casey Neumiller
Gamorrean
Joined: 24 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 29, 2003 23:02 Post subject: |
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Turn that frown
upside-down
make the world a little brighter.
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Matt K
Dark Trooper Phase 1
Joined: 27 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 30, 2003 14:20 Post subject: |
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Fenwar wrote:
Or people could actually try to use the body of their posts as the outlet of personal expression... just a thought.
We've seen where that goes....
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Tom Resnick
Trandoshan
Joined: 30 Sep 2003
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Tom Manning
Trandoshan
Joined: 27 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 30, 2003 20:45 Post subject: |
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And well, you should!
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Tom Manning
For all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you, Stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn: Return of the King |
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japh
Gamorrean
Joined: 30 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 30, 2003 21:23 Post subject: |
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I phrikking hate avatars.
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The MAZZTer
Death Star
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Oct 01, 2003 11:00 Post subject: |
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Well this is a cool avatar...
IT'S THE INCREDIBLE RANDOM CHANGING AVATAR. (Just refresh to see it work right before yuor very eyes!)
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DarthDoctor
Gamorrean
Joined: 29 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Oct 02, 2003 01:59 Post subject: |
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One word people:
PNG
The wave of the future.
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"At least, I think it was primitive DD that was the source of the bug" - Nottheking |
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Fish
Gamorrean
Joined: 29 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Oct 02, 2003 13:02 Post subject: |
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I don't see the point in introducing avatars. Do they make the forums any better? They are usually just annoying (especially if large). I don't see what will they improve. I don't think they give absolutely any valuable personal expression, especially as they are usually pictures of pokemons or similar low-IQ bundles of useless condensed flesh...
Exactly the simplicity of DF-21 forums is what I like(d) about them. No avatars, minimal usage of pictures generally (except the legendary smilies), no stunts with the fonts. Well this is supposed to be a forum, not a gallery, right?
Also the signatures of some members are often annoying. Some people's forum signatures consist of six quotes, followed by their biography, then the local weather report, full lyrics of their favourite song and a joke that is older than Egyptian civilization. Then add an avatar (an irritating animated GIF) to it. A pure terror!
Perhaps some of you will find me too out-of-date and rejecting the new trends, but I really don't see why should the forums, that were intended for the people to exchange written information, have to look like a combination of a mosaic manga gallery and a space shuttle cockpit.
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Matt K
Dark Trooper Phase 1
Joined: 27 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Oct 02, 2003 13:27 Post subject: |
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Well, avatars are different than sig pics -- they'd be standard 50x50 (or 100x100) pixel images under your username on the side of your post. So the irriatation and load time is rather minimal, really.
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The MAZZTer
Death Star
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Oct 02, 2003 13:30 Post subject: |
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Well, I downloaded those avatars in GIF format, and I could batch convert them to PNG, but it wouldn't make much of a difference file-size-wise. Just to let you know tho, I usually opt for PNG instead of GIF.
Fish wrote:
I don't see the point in introducing avatars. Do they make the forums any better? They are usually just annoying (especially if large). I don't see what will they improve. I don't think they give absolutely any valuable personal expression, especially as they are usually pictures of pokemons or similar low-IQ bundles of useless condensed flesh...
Hey, I never said the entirety of the pokemon thing was neat. Just the GameBoy games (and the Wiazards of the Coast Trading Card Game). The rest of the stuff is garbage.
Quote:
Exactly the simplicity of DF-21 forums is what I like(d) about them. No avatars, minimal usage of pictures generally (except the legendary smilies), no stunts with the fonts. Well this is supposed to be a forum, not a gallery, right?
Eh, I gotta agree with you there, but I still say avatars show more personality than a nick or a sig... a picture is worht 1000 words after all.
Quote:
Also the signatures of some members are often annoying. Some people's forum signatures consist of six quotes, followed by their biography, then the local weather report, full lyrics of their favourite song and a joke that is older than Egyptian civilization. Then add an avatar (an irritating animated GIF) to it. A pure terror!
I have seen sigs like that, they are quite annoying. Someone at massassi.net put an entire poem in his sig, so that the sig was longer than his posts! What a n00b.
Quote:
Perhaps some of you will find me too out-of-date and rejecting the new trends, but I really don't see why should the forums, that were intended for the people to exchange written information, have to look like a combination of a mosaic manga gallery and a space shuttle cockpit.
I understand where you're coming from, I used to have a 56k myself before I came to college. Sometimes lets of people are on the internet tho, and my connections slows to below a 56k's, so I still experience the slowdown of graphics-intence pages.
You are welcome to have an avatar that reads "Avatars suck." Or just disable images in your browser all together. j/k...
Perhaps a compromise? Fish, how would you feel with maybe a forum option (if possible) to toggle the display of avatars, or a filesize and image size limit on avatars? I'm just curious.
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http://www.mzzt.net/ | I am a respectable admin with a respectable sig. |
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Fish
Gamorrean
Joined: 29 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Oct 02, 2003 13:49 Post subject: |
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Well yes, it would be OK if there was an option (preferably stored through a cookie) to view and use the forum pages without the avatars (and signatures). But on most sites that option is not available.
Some pictures are worth thousand words, but many of them are not worth even ten. Now I'll let you decide for yourself in which group should an avatar be sorted.
After all, why would it be so important on a forum dedicated to Dark Forces to express personality so directly and deeply? We're not a dating agency. And besides, I don't think many people really judge any personality by the avatar. Most will judge it by the textual content - a dozen posts are usually enough to have a picture of someone's personality clearer than an avatar will, right?
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Nottheking
Kell Dragon
Joined: 29 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Oct 02, 2003 17:35 Post subject: Insert subject here! |
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I also like the ability to use the subject line for each post... I'll put something more creative there, as soon as I can think up of anything...
Also, If we WERE to have avatars, I think the primary reason is so we could have mousebot avatars... And perhaps encode them so they squeaked when you clicked on them...
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Wake up, George Lucas... The Matrix has you.. |
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Tom Manning
Trandoshan
Joined: 27 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Oct 02, 2003 20:36 Post subject: |
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I still think it would be cool to have avatars
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Tom Manning
For all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you, Stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn: Return of the King |
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