In praise of avatars

[Nick]

...and I'm not talking about the movie.

The Angband community is active and growing, and there is a lot of excellent discussion on these forums. As I was reading through a bunch of it today, I found that my aging brain was having trouble keeping up with who everyone is; but people with avatars I find easier to imagine as individuals. Sigs help too.

So to anyone who has wanted to have an avatar but thinks people will look down on them, I am not one of those people. And if you're still nostalgic for usenet, there's always ASCII art

[fizzix]

Heh, I'm the opposite of Nick. I immediately turn off avatars and sigs on most forums I go to. This forum hasn't made this necessary because:

1: most people don't bother with long and annoying signatures
2: No one has animated gifs as avatars.

So if you're going to make an avatar, please nothing moving or flashing, and keep your sigs to one line or less. This will help poor people like me who have trouble reading stuff on pages that have moving things.

[Derakon]

Oh all right, I suppose I may as well bring in my standard avatar.

[Magnate]

Oh all right, I suppose I may as well bring in my standard avatar.

I'm with fizzix - I've turned off all sigs and avatars because they cannot be anything but annoying. I remember who people are by, er, their names. (Hey, this disagreeing with Nick lark is turning out to be fun!)

[AnonymousHero]

MY problem is that I can't pick an avatar, because THERE ARE NO AVATARS AWESOME ENOUGH TO REPRESENT THE ANONYMOUSHERO!

(... maybe I should find a one-pixel type thing...)

[PowerDiver]

MY problem is that I can't pick an avatar, because THERE ARE NO AVATARS AWESOME ENOUGH TO REPRESENT THE ANONYMOUSHERO!

The anonymous heroes in the stories I read don't last long. How about a gravestone with

RIP
(unknown)

The alternative is a picture of Clint Eastwood from those no-name movies.

[buzzkill]

The anonymous heroes in the stories I read don't last long. How about a gravestone with

RIP
(unknown)

Hey, that's (very nearly) my avatar. Hands off!

[AnonymousHero]

The anonymous heroes in the stories I read don't last long. How about a gravestone with

Yeah, Pshaw! "Stories". This is reeeeeel life, man (or gal as the case may be)!

[ekolis]

What about a picture of Link from the "Zelda" games, only with his face blurred out?

[Timo Pietilä]

Yeah, Pshaw! "Stories". This is reeeeeel life, man (or gal as the case may be)!

I don't think Eddie is a gal, unless she had very cruel parents.

[Timo Pietilä]

MY problem is that I can't pick an avatar, because THERE ARE NO AVATARS AWESOME ENOUGH TO REPRESENT THE ANONYMOUSHERO!

(... maybe I should find a one-pixel type thing...)

I can't figure out what to use. I would like to use Focus Fusion logo, but that obviously would make bad Avatar. Maybe if I can find a good giant picture somewhere....

(I had my picture taken once with all of the other people of the certain organization once, and I tried to be as small as possible so I positioned myself in the back corner of the group. Camera was a cheap digital one with very badly distorting optics. Result was that I looked like a giant that could have all of the small women into middle of the picture sit on the palm of my hand. I am rather large, but not that large)

[buzzkill]

Google/Images/"random avatar search"/Icon/ClipArt...

Anonymous and Timo

... or how about this?

@ Anonymous, not quite what I had in mind... even better. Classic.

[AnonymousHero]

I see an avatar in my future...

[AnonymousHero]

Did it work?

EDIT: No, it didn't.

EDIT#2: Or maybe it did. The "User CP" shows the right picture, but I can't tell what's happened from my posts. Either way, what I chose as my "avatar" was this: http://imgur.com/k9MEw

EDIT#3: Thanks, BK. You're a genius... a *crazy* genius, but a genius nonetheless.

[will_asher]

That's a cool avatar, but I had to use the link to see it (it isn't showing here).