Please take the Animated Avatar survey.

[FrizzleFried]

Of course you voted for animated avatars. You have been amongst the most vocal on the topic consistently.

Funny you wrote about the file size... as you see, I was composing a message which included that topic (file size) and mentioned you by name at the same time you posted this one. When I posted it, your message appeared.

Regarding 19.5k, that was likely just the default setting in vbulletin. If an older limit was bigger it was likely in days we ran UBBthreads or before.

Brilliant minds think alike. Just before the "upgrade" ... the limit was about 45K... we then hit the upgrade about a year and a half ago and then the limit was dropped to 19K but we still could have animated avatars. That lasted a couple months then it went away totally.

I miss being able to post my "Frizz thinking" avatars...

EDIT: 19.5K is too small. I "vote" 45K is fine... but if that is too much how about meeting in the middle... say around 35K?

 

[mclemore]

Given that Level42's avatar is 16k even though it's just 2 cells, and jehuie's avatar is 19k even though it's tiny, I'd say the answer is "no".

A lot of easy optimization can be done to bring a file size down, though at some point it gets noticeable quickly.

Yup. My avatar, for example, is kind of fuzzy because it had to be downsized (thanks Jawhn!). I use the same avatar on a couple of other sites, and it's much clearer. Either way, it's no big deal. I'm fine with it as is, but would upload a better version if given the option.

How big is the file size you use on other sites?

 

[FrizzleFried]

BYOAC has a 120 x 120, 64K limit I do believe.

Neo-Geo.com has a bigger limit but they over-do it. They also allow images in their SIG which DOES clutter up the place IMHO.

 

[mclemore]

Ok...

It looks like the vBulletin default for an avatar is 50x50x 20,000 bytes (non animated). We increased them here to 80x80, and then 100x100 without any increased in byte size (which is fine for a non-animated).

Profile Pictures default at 100x100x 25,000 bytes (non-animated). We increased the max size here to 64k.

So many users have profile pictures (FF, I see you don't...). I haven't heard any requests that they be animated, though I see no harm in it.

 

[FrizzleFried]

I had a profile picture at some point.

100x100 or 120x120 @ 64K would be awesome...

The survey seems pretty clear... the 75% / 25% ratio has remained pretty consistent since the poll took off.

 

[EVB]

They are sensitive because they are perverts.

I think we should have a vote on who knows how to use the ESC key.

Funny, that sounds oddly reminiscent of my cobra command animated gif that supposedly looked like an up-the-skirt-shot. It's so funny how people get sensitive over things that are not.

 

[That80sGuy]

See I got all excited .. found a cool new animated avitar and now can't use it until this poll is over. I think as long as an avatar isn't perveted or considered non-family friendly it should be allowed. Also the board owners/mods reserve the right to make that call. As for size.. 120X120 max with total not more than 64bytes .. Also I think it only fair that there be no 'grandfathering in' of animated avatars. Either its allowed or it isn't..period.

imho

 

[SRS]

I think we should have a vote on who knows how to use the ESC key.

That doesn't work when you are using Chrome. Is there an equivalent in Chrome?

 

[mclemore]

... As for size.. 120X120 max with total not more than 64bytes ..

Even if animated avatars were turned on, 120x120 wouldn't fly as the is and would stay 100x100.

I might be talked into letting profile pictures be a little bigger...

 

[FrizzleFried]

100x100 @ 64k = Awesome
100x100 @ 48k = Very good
100x100 @ 32k = Better than what we have
100x100 @ 19.5k = Meh... I guess it's better than nothing

 

[jehuie]

I voted against animated avatars because I like being exclusive.

But for real, thank you Greg for reconsidering this. I'd like to have mine back at full size once again!

 

[Cmndr Brain]

I like the option. Just as long as the size is limited. Too big and I would agree they get annoying. Keep the size down to something like 96x96 pixels or even slightly smaller would be fine.

 

[jawhn]

... Question:

If animated avatars were permitted, is 19.5k enough?

I think closer to 50K is a lot less restrictive... And to echo jehuie, thanks for reconsidering. I miss the animated option. I'd even be willing to donate a buck (or something along those lines) to 'have' an animated one...

 

[YieArKade]

Is there any way that the avatar code on KLOV could be made to accept/display IMG tags?

That way the mod wouldn't have to worry about hosting the gif.

tinypic.com hosts animated gifs for free.

Here's an example gif that I just uploaded. I used the 100X75 avatar resize. The next step up is 160X120 (thumbnail).

Here's Jehuie's gif hosted on tinypic.com using the default size setting of his gif of 150px × 100px.

And I don't know about other browsers, but with Firefox you can right click on these animated gifs and block individual gifs from tinpic.com if you don't want to see them.

 

[YieArKade]

This may be my new avatar if we ever get to change our avatars to animated.

 

[groffdaddy]

This may be my new avatar if we ever get to change our avatars to animated.

Popeye needs a KLOV price police shirt.

 

[joemagiera]

Originally Posted by avidgeek
Maybe you're the type that should open your mind up a bit more, look at something from more than just one perspective. I know at least for me that the connection I make with other klovers is largely based off of their avatar more than their nickname....

I guess I'll never be making a connection with avidgeek then. Maybe HE should be the one to open up his mind a bit more?

 

[joemagiera]

Originally Posted by mclemore
A couple thousand forum members have logged on since I posted the survey, and only 84 have voted. I take this to mean that it's hard to put a lot of weight in the survey, except to gather that there is likely a huge percentage of the people that have no strong opinion about it, and that for those that do, more people find the animated avatars fun than find them annoying.

Well that's an interesting way to interpret the data.

Hmmm...thousands log on, 84 vote, based on that, form an opinion that very few care either way. Sounds like a pretty reasonable conclusion to me. How would you interpret the data?

 

[CrazyKongFan]

I'm one of the people who mentioned accessing the forums on dialup. I don't have any problem with them at 64K...I was just worried about people using those huge ones (1+MB)...that would suck on dialup

 

[jehuie]

Hmmm...thousands log on, 84 vote, based on that, form an opinion that very few care either way. Sounds like a pretty reasonable conclusion to me. How would you interpret the data?

I think most people would look at the graphs and see it as leaning heavily for avatars. But he looked at it and saw them as leaning against. I wasn't judging it one way or the other. Just saying it was interesting.

And I don't think my avatar was ever on here quite as big as I have it in my link. That would be fairly overwhelming. I have a mid-sized version that I made that I think worked well. The tiny one is hard to make out what's going on though.

Does the forum software let you limit them by both pixel size and file size? Or some combination of the two? Mine is so tiny because the file size is so limiting.