Can we please have animated avatars?

[mdwh]

(Okay, it seems there's disagreement regarding my question, but anyway...)

Bolded the important part.

In which case, this argument:

This is why people shouldn't be allowed animated avatars.

Spoiler animated avatar example :

Is not valid, as obviously those ones could be disallowed, in the same way that someone wouldn't be allowed to put say a goatse icon in their static avatar currently.

Although this would need to be policed by mods - that's no different to the situation currently, anyway.

 

[Volum]

I'd rather we didnt. I dont really see the point,i like the way the forums are so organized and easy to read. You wont get that with blinkin avartars, huge sized avartars or with giant My Chemical Romance pictures in your sig. (omg i must be growing upp)

And who gets to decide whats annoying and what isnt? A lot of different things can be annoying to a lot of different people. I think its just easier to not allow animated avartars at all.

 

[Swedishguy]

I'd rather we didnt. I dont really see the point,i like the way the forums are so organized and easy to read. You wont get that with blinkin avartars, huge sized avartars or with giant My Chemical Romance pictures in your sig. (omg i must be growing upp)

And who gets to decide whats annoying and what isnt? A lot of different things can be annoying to a lot of different people. I think its just easier to now allow animated avartars at all.

Now? What's the rush?

 

[azzaman333]

I'd rather we didnt. I dont really see the point,i like the way the forums are so organized and easy to read. You wont get that with blinkin avartars, huge sized avartars or with giant My Chemical Romance pictures in your sig. (omg i must be growing upp)

And who gets to decide whats annoying and what isnt? A lot of different things can be annoying to a lot of different people. I think its just easier to now allow animated avartars at all.

Yep, easier for a ban on all animated avatars than a ban on annoying ones since different mods/posters would have different opinions on what may or may not be annoying.

 

[Volum]

Now? What's the rush?

Fine so i spelled a word wrong!

But your Swedish so you dont count!

 

[ggganz]

No, he's not. He confessed. That is just about the ONLY beleivable thing in the "Do you have anything to confess?" thread.

 

[IglooDame]

Yep, easier for a ban on all animated avatars than a ban on annoying ones since different mods/posters would have different opinions on what may or may not be annoying.

Heck, some of us think animated avatars are automatically annoying.

 

[GenMarshall]

I am still supprised that this is being debated to death.

All I know the answer (for those supporting animated avatars) would be a long winded and disappointing, no.

 

[CartesianFart]

The thing that annoys me is that Civfanatics have wayyyy too many traditionalists who are too senile to even to try a change once in awhile.

What I mean is this: Why can't we try some experimenting first (allowing animated avatars for 1 month trial basis) instead of passing rash judgment on whether we should try it or not?

 

[Catharsis]

The thing that annoys me is that Civfanatics have wayyyy too many traditionalists who are too senile to even to try a change once in awhile.

What I mean is this: Why can't we try some experimenting first (allowing animated avatars for 1 month trial basis) instead of passing rash judgment on whether we should try it or not?

The same reason we don't allow this:

I'd say you're too positive. How's this for a sig?
__________________

i.e. it's very annoying, and there are always going to be some who take it too far. We might be able to trust you to have a nice avatar depicting Descartes philosophising and generally being brainy, but others (not naming any Swedes... I mean names ) will just fill it up with :dancedood:.

 

[C~G]

The thing that annoys me is that Civfanatics have wayyyy too many traditionalists who are too senile to even to try a change once in awhile.

What I mean is this: Why can't we try some experimenting first (allowing animated avatars for 1 month trial basis) instead of passing rash judgment on whether we should try it or not?

These seniles have experience from other boards about animated avatars and I can assure you that some of them are nice and flashy for second or too but very soon even the best ones start to annoy let alone blinking Panic ones. And it isn't only one avatar at time but whole page full of annoying avatars.

I also think the smileys from the sigs should be banned since they don't add nothing to the board and the idea should be about reading and trying to comprehend each other's message better (might make some good for you too Fart. ) than trying to flesh out some crazy ideas what is eye candy for ourselves.

 

[Stormrage]

Most other forums I`ve visited have more useless crap than actual conversation.. I mean, they have huge images in sigs, and annoying avatars.. and.. Its like.. 5 posts per page saying "I agree!" and "OMG kewl", and you have to scroll trough them for a whole minute!

NO animated avatars please. Also, regarding animated sig smilies (or sig smilies at all).. I use them, but I can live without them if it would get some annoying sigs out of my daily CFC-ing..

 

[mdwh]

The same reason we don't allow this:



i.e. it's very annoying, and there are always going to be some who take it too far. We might be able to trust you to have a nice avatar depicting Descartes philosophising and generally being brainy, but others (not naming any Swedes... I mean names ) will just fill it up with :dancedood:.

But surely we do allow those sorts of things? Or at least, I've seen equally annoying and ridiculous animated "emoticons". Even by some of the posters who seem to be against the idea of animated avatars.

At least an avatar has to be within a certain size, and confined to the side of the screen, unlike pointless animated icons in the post itself which get in your field of view and are much more distracting, plus I don't think they can be turned off like avatars, so I'd say these are more annoying and distracting than animated avatars.

So can we ban those?

I'm not particularly wanting animated avatars, but my points have been that the arguments against them have so far been weak imo, and there are more important things to sort of with regards to annoying images.

 

[Stormrage]

You can turn off smilies IIRC

Edit: nope, sorry. You can turn them off in your posts (i.e. you need to post a programing code with a ";" and a ")" next to each other)

 

[Catharsis]

mdwh: Animated emoticons are less annoying than animated avatars for a few reasons:

1. They're smaller. The biggest one, I think, is the spearman-tank one, which isn't especially annoying and isn't used very often. Most are quite small, like . That smiley isn't as annoying (in an aesthetic sense at least ) as an avatar-sized epilepsy-inducing flashing 'PANIC', wouldn't you say?

2. We can only use emoticons that TF allows us to use, unless we can be bothered to copy them as images from other sites (and even then, because they are images, they aren't allowed in sigs). An animated avatar could be anything, unless it's pornographic or racist, for example. I'm not sure that the mods would care to enforce a ban on 'annoying avatars'.

3. As you say, the animated emoticons are within the text of the post itself. This means that it does not distract you so much from the text, as it is already inside it. The avatar is separate from the text and so is more distracting.

4. You can un-animate emoticons by pressing Esc, which means you get all the emoticons but without the animation to annoy you. In order to get rid of an annoying animated avatar, you'd have to turn avatars off, and I personally think CFC looks better with avatars on (there are a few I'd miss) although that's just personal choice. Thing is, that's the personal choice of a lot of posters.

5. Animated emoticons (for the most part, anyway) serve a purpose. For example, if we look at again - this emoticon shows disdain in a way that use of text would be difficult to convey. (We've all had those 'sarcasm-over-the-internet' moments.) An avatar is meant as a picture which posters can recognise you by, which in some way represents your personality. What are the benefits of making it animated?

6. Some of them just plain rock.

I do, however, agree that animated emoticons in sigs are annoying, because they are not in the body of the main text. They aren't as annoying as animated avatars would be (because they're smaller) but they aren't really aesthetically pleasing, especially the various guns. ? . (See? Disdain.) However, I wouldn't go so far as to ban them. Enforcing a ban means wasting moderator time, which could be spent banning Perfection stopping spammers, on warning new users about their sigs - it would be pointless.

The introduction of animated avatars and the banning of animated emoticons in sigs have the same problem - needless complexity.

 

[ohcrapitsnico]

I'm not for animated avatars it hurts my eyes and thats why I don't even like it when people have smilies in their sigs.

 

[Plotinus]

5. Animated emoticons (for the most part, anyway) serve a purpose. For example, if we look at again - this emoticon shows disdain in a way that use of text would be difficult to convey.

I completely disagree with this, as I think that if someone isn't capable of expressing themselves using words, they probably don't have anything useful to express at all. But I think I'm alone in this view. At any rate, the loathsome rolling eyes smilie is high on my personal list of things that should be banned, because it is always used solely to aggravate - in fact I don't think I've ever seen it used in a way that wasn't at least borderline trolling.

However, you're right that animated avatars would have even less purpose than smilies. They just say "look at me", and we have enough of that sort of thing on the site as it is without giving people extra tools to do it. As others have pointed out, other sites that do have animated avatars, huge animated sigs, and similar, are hideous to read. To be honest I don't really see the point of static avatars either, but that's probably just me too.

 

[ohcrapitsnico]

I completely disagree with this, as I think that if someone isn't capable of expressing themselves using words, they probably don't have anything useful to express at all. But I think I'm alone in this view. At any rate, the loathsome rolling eyes smilie is high on my personal list of things that should be banned, because it is always used solely to aggravate - in fact I don't think I've ever seen it used in a way that wasn't at least borderline trolling.

However, you're right that animated avatars would have even less purpose than smilies. They just say "look at me", and we have enough of that sort of thing on the site as it is without giving people extra tools to do it. As others have pointed out, other sites that do have animated avatars, huge animated sigs, and similar, are hideous to read. To be honest I don't really see the point of static avatars either, but that's probably just me too.

I agree with most of what you say, smilies are there to add to your post not to substitute it. I'm also one to sya we should ban smilies in sigs. Many time I see people with sigs who just have random jumbled smilies for no reason and in great quantities.

I like static avatars, it gives a face to people and I recognize people more by their avatars than their names but animation is too far.

 

[CartesianFart]

These seniles have experience from other boards about animated avatars and I can assure you that some of them are nice and flashy for second or too but very soon even the best ones start to annoy let alone blinking Panic ones. And it isn't only one avatar at time but whole page full of annoying avatars.

There can always be some kind of substantial initiative to accomodate other people who are not in favor of animated avatar; such as a button to turn it off or on.

But I am afraid you will be forgetful of this comment since senile people have the tendency to forget.

I also think the smileys from the sigs should be banned since they don't add nothing to the board and the idea should be about reading and trying to comprehend each other's message better (might make some good for you too Fart. ) than trying to flesh out some crazy ideas what is eye candy for ourselves.

I don't know about that and I beg to differ because reading people's ordinary comments time to time is less of being of a eye-candy for me, so I must decline the bann since that is the only thing that enjoyable for me to see.

i.e. it's very annoying, and there are always going to be some who take it too far. We might be able to trust you to have a nice avatar depicting Descartes philosophising and generally being brainy, but others (not naming any Swedes... I mean names ) will just fill it up with :dancedood:.

Everything you say is wrong except the Swedes I say!

I completely disagree with this, as I think that if someone isn't capable of expressing themselves using words, they probably don't have anything useful to express at all.

Are you saying the expressions with the emoticons are not really expression at all? That emoticons are inferior than words. ok- I really believe you are exactly right on that one! -

 

[Aramazd]

There can always be some kind of substantial initiative to accomodate other people who are not in favor of animated avatar; such as a button to turn it off or on.

You can hit escape and it stops animations. But, animated avatars are annoying and don't really add anything to the forum.