Which is completely irrelevant to what the use of avatars might cause.

Please see Jenbel's signature example

Or they could have just posted links to the pictures which would have been much less intrusive.

kanebear writes:

It took me a while to realize that you are in fact a moderator of the Travel Photography Forum. Are your experiences with moderating images on that forum vastly different from those of Mikel and the moderators of Trip Reports, all of whom have reported no problems whatsoever?

I think this thread is another example where a photo will help get the point across much more concisely than any of us have been able to describe with words. Look for my next post....

Here is an example of how I'd envision the new smilies to look.

Here is an example of how I'd envision the addition of the avatars to look.

Again, this is a quick/crude mockup of my own doing, obviously Randy/IB would do a much better job with the actual design.

I hope the two mockups I've created show just how minimal these improvements would be to the existing look and feel of FlyerTalk that we all agree is miles above other BB's.

Your "surrender" smilie is spelt incorrectly as "surrendr"!

Freudian...

no, I just plagiarized part of nsx's (excellent) smilie list.

Thanks for taking the time to do this, because it really does help to illustrate what's on the table.

Whether these are improvements is the main question; minimalism is a corollary one. Improvement is a consideration of context as well as personal tastes.

I still don't find avs or additional smilies as an improvement "to the existing look and feel of Flyertalk."

I'm not against avs per se (and, of course, do partake in the use of emoticons as much as anyone else on FT). In fact, I very much like using my personal avs and goofier smilies on another IBB. The expression angle -- I get it. But enabling the display of additional image-type content on this IBB, given the comments made thus far, appears to be of highly questionable added value.

(To borrow a popular sign off) ... other FT members may feel differently.

Thanks again, nroscoe, for creating those examples. They are very helpful.

I'm still in favor of this style of smilies reduced in size to our current smilies.

They offer a contemporary face-lift to our current stick-figure set, add a few extras and life goes on pretty much as before.

Thanks for doing this as well! ^

I would agree with the mouserunner set. I wonder what copyright issues there are with smilies?

nroscoe, I appreciate the time and effort you put into the mock-up pages. ^

I like the mouserunner set as well...

One thing to consider - for those of us browsing semi-illicitly at times it would be nice to ensure that new smilies are not going to blow our chances of being able to do this

No, however that also holds true for Travel Technology at large. It's rare we have any problematic posters of any kind and extremely rare (as in less than once a year) that any 'official' action must be taken regarding a poster.

That, naturally, does not extend to the rest of the board. It's certainly not the case that other areas of FT are as problem-free. Why would it be any different for images? I shudder to consider an image-enabled OMNI.

This is the best argument I have seen for limiting smilies. Perhaps we need a constraint that the smiley does not stand out from the page when viewed from a distance of 15 feet. @:-) Stick figures and muted colors would help.

That's a VERY good point to ponder.

This is why I like being able to get input from users across the spectrum... it helps to develop an informed opinion on a topic!