Wingnut writes:

Thank you for that excellent suggestion, one that had not yet been suggested.

Like you, I am not a fan of avatars either, but see no reason why those who want them (even if they are in the minority) can't have them, especially since viewing them is optional.

FWIW, this thread (and what I hope to be many more discussion threads in the future), are not for the purpose of voting. They are for the purpose of sharing ideas and gathering information from the community, in order to make FlyerTalk a better place for all.

You will find over the next two years that I am a pretty tolerant person with an open mind to any reasonable idea that will strengthen the community, especially something like this which can easily be utilized or not at the will of each individual.

Edited do to downstream clarification. . .

There are reasons not to have them. Storage/bandwith/technical capacity and the associated costs, for one.

As someone who is a capacity manager and performance analyst by profession, let me say that enabling something like this could (not definitely, but could) slow down FT for everyone, not just those that choose to enable avatars.

I would seriously suggest that a pilot program and serious testing be done before something like this is turned on.

Personally, I think it's a lousy idea. If we want to make pictures available, use the gallery and put links in the profiles. FT's performance and speed should be considered the #1 overriding concern/consideration.

If RichMSN is correct (and I have no reason to believe that he isn't - he seems to do this for a profession whereas I deal with people who consider dressing up to be a living) this would be enough to get me off my woolly (with no offence to sheep), liberal "aw, if they want to do it and it doesn't get in my face, then just let them" horse and say: no, it's a ridiculous idea. If this is going to be done, it absolutely can't be allowed to slow FT down. If it will slow FT down, it shouldn't be done.

Sorry, I have to call BS on that "it will slow down FT for everyone" line of crap. Completely false.

Besides, who said anything about FT having to host "all" those avatars? Just enable remote images only and problem solved. No storage, no bandwidth, no technical capacity (whatever that is) increase.

Or say they decided to be generous and host "all" those avatars for everyone. If the limit on avatar image size is, say, 30k, that means everyone on FT can have an avatar and it will require a whopping what, 6GB of extra disk space! Hey, I've got a $20 bill right here. Problem solved.

And if the vast majority of FT users don't want avatars then it won't be an issue at all, will it?

I am not techie by any stretch of the imagination, but I do belong to a larger BB community (cruisecritic.com #71) than FlyerTalk (#110) where people frequently have three or four images attached to every post, and that board moves very, very fast and appears to have very few problems. This, however, would be an issue on which FlyerTalk and IB would have to advise. I agree that if a feature affects performance, then that must be seriously weighed against its perceived value. If it costs more than they are willing to spend, then that is the end of the discussion.

I apologize if I was unclear, birdstrike. What I meant is that I would very much like having identification photo avatars of the poster, but am not particularly fond of non-photo avatars in general. I also recognize, however, that I am much older than most FlyerTalkers and the young people I know (some here) seem to enjoy them. Whether we like to admit it or not, the population of FT will continue to become younger and younger than we are today, and we need to think of their needs and desires as well as our own.

IIRC that was a concern early on. It is not clear what position IB would have on it since the implementation is now in their bailiwick.

I don't think the issue has reached the level of requiring profanity.

I suspect the UBB software finds it easter to vet avatars at time of upload, rather than every time the image is requested. Just allowing a simple embedded URL would not work on a number of levels.

As the onetime host of the Photo Contest I can assure you that using remote images would require technical capabilities beyond that of many of our members. No doubt there would also be many volunteer helpers, but it is not the slam-dunk you envision.

If this is your basis for supporting avatars, it would seem to me to follow that you would support just any kind of avatars, rather than just those consisting of a headshot, unless you want to argue that younger generations have a strong interest in headshot avatars but no interest whatsoever in other kinds of avatars? If so, it does raise the stakes from a moderation perspective.

Thus begging the question why it's being discussed in the first place.....

(FWIW, I'm firmly against avatars, as it's going to create a whole slew of work for the mods that is completely unnecessary to the idea of miles and points).

FT works because of the user generated content. Avatars are noise.

What I like as a general member and what I would support as a TalkBoard member are two entiely balls of wax.

There are many things that I don't personally like or even care about one way or the other, but I am flexible enough that I would still support those things as a TalkBoard member if I felt they were in the best interest of other members of the community. I sincerely hope that all TalkBoard members feel exactly the same way.

As was stated earlier, there really doesn't necessarily need to be any moderator involvement. That task could be allocated to an image monitoring team. Actually that might be a good way to create more general interest in FT, while simultaneously removing a burden from the moderator team.

Remote hosting? Talk about a disaster -- security, performance, moderator ability to control easily....

Do you have any clue what goes into the performance and responsiveness of an application like this for all users?

It requires CPU, I/O, and memory resources, not to mention network bandwidth (there is a network component between FT servers and the Internet itself) to load these images on page views for those that choose to show them. Disk space is not the only concern, here. If it was, I wouldn't worry about such a thing at all as disk is plentiful and cheap.

If you think that loading an additional 2.5MB (60k per avatar, 40 posts per page) wouldn't create an additional hit and wouldn't warrant a detailed capacity and performance study, well, I can't convince you. And with a finite amount of resources, avatar viewers will reduce available resources for EVERYONE.

The simpler the website and bulletin board, the fewer technical resources it requires to run.

I'm not saying it would slow down FT. I'm saying it might without the proper sizing/simulation/modeling study and no real business would simply turn this on without doing the proper risk assessment and capacity plan, via change management. Service Management 101.

please put me in the any type of avatar column... but I only support static (ie: no flash/animation) avatars.

What ClueByFour said

Yes, and cruisecritic.com is unbelievably garish. It doesn't fit the voice and rubric of Flyertalk at all, IME.

Alexa rankings (or whatever indice cited) may be an accurate indicator of overall web traffic, but not necessarily of content quality or user relevance. We're not out to win any popularity contests; we're out to build and maintain the very best Flyertalk possible.

I'm curious: at what point did Randy's message about moderation not being a purview of the Talkboard morph into "creating image mods as opposed to regular mods?" It's not even a week old !

In the context of volunteerism, I can only assume this is the "full employment" platform?

Or, we accept the fact that FT is about miles and points and that things like avatars, reputation, and such are noise.