The majority of people probably don't bother fiddling with thier settings in the first place, so as long as FT keeps the default setting to not show avatars but gives those who want to the option to do so, I really don't see why this would be such a big problem.

Is anybody willing to address this idea? SanDiego1k? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks.

Because as many people have said already, with stuff like this there has always been abuse or claims of abuse. And in such situations, it doesn't matter that most of the people won't be looking at avatars - action would have to be taken to remove abusive avatars.

Additionally, although we can make rules about what is and isn't appropriate, there are always going to be those who will ignore them and the system would always be reactive, with more than 100 000 people registered. And there is going to be a massive grey area as well - so for example, poster A has an avatar which poster B claims is a direct attack on them.... it would happen! Who has to decide if poster A was actually attacking poster B or poster B was being over sensitive or looking for trouble where there was no intent? As birdstrike says, we are a pretty creative lot and we would probably have both situations occurring.

Additionally, what is work appropriate in some areas/regions/countries may not be in others - look at the reaction to Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" in the US as an example, whereas many other parts of the globe have more explicit tv ads! Or, someone puts up something which may be distasteful or insulting to a group of posters - for example, many Americans revere the US flag, and would be insulted if it were to be insulted - but for most non-Americans, it's just a flag, nothing more, nothing less and has no special meaning to us so deserves no special protection.

I think you are looking at this question through the rosy tinted spectacles of you thinking it's a good idea, when you have never seen what goes in OMNI, or seen any of the furore which has been generated previously when systems have been abused.

what about avatars for member with more than 500 posts, and at least 1 year activity or something in this direction?

Seems like a good idea to me f4freeJunior, but I am
wearing rose colored glasses...

I just stumbled across a suspended handle with 4 years of activity and a couple of thousand posts. So longevity is no guarantee.

I'd surmise from this thread that the majority of FTers don't care, and the ones who probably have the power to make decisions are against it.

Worse things have happened.

Bingo.@:-)

See Cholula's posts.

Avatar enabling would likely be a Talkboard vote/input type deal IMHO.

I support him in that I'd vote against them based on the proven past behaviour of a small group who have derailed and actively abused all the other features that Admin installed hopefully for the common good.

All that group are still active and often very senior FT'ers. Nothing will change if they get Avatar access IMHO.

Glen

I see all your points.
But I wouldn't have a problem to suspend those who abuse the avatars, even if they are senior FTer with many posts.

That has been done, but there are too many edge cases and not enough time for the moderators to adjuticate them all.

If no avatars are allowed; then what purpose is the seemingly purposeless, Avatar Choice, check box?

Why have typeface, italics, boldface, underline, size etc. choices; if they can not be be chosen? Or alternatively: if chosen; then denied use?

Interesting first post. Welcome to FlyerTalk, focusoninfinity.

The software used by FlyerTalk is a commercial, off-the-shelf application.

While it can be customized, I don't think anyone thought it worthwhile to make the avatar option checkbox itself optional.

Ridiculous. Really infuriating.