A Forum Improvement...Suggestion to Auran.

[illinoiscentral]

Auran and Community,

I am a member at RRMods.com along with this forum, and I like the way RRMods does their avatars.
Could you change the avatar system to where we can put our own custom picture in it, of course they wouldn't be too big.
I'm sure you will have people complaining about their dial-up, but honestly, I run a slow connection and still enjoy it, and quite frankly could care less.
If anything, the avatar will simply not show up on a dial-up connection, so I really don't think it would be that big of a deal.

Please consider this request!
Woody

 

[gary6204]

it says on the avatar section something about "if you choose not to have an avatar, this will erase any custom avaters you have." i've always wondered what that meant and were to upload them.

but this would be cool, as long as it it curtious to others and related to the game some how, this would be a cool idea.

 

[Baureihe41]

I think this request has been filed at least a dozen times. The answer has always been:

 

[illinoiscentral]

Well,
I think the avatars should be anything, as long as they are appropriate.
I enjoy being able to put a dirtbike on mine,a as this shoes who I am.

Woody

 

[aardvark1]

Well,
I think the avatars should be anything, as long as they are appropriate.
I enjoy being able to put a dirtbike on mine,a as this shoes who I am.

Woody

So then Woody.... your avator of choice will be... shoes?

Surely, there must be better choices than.......shoes.

Oh well,

 

[illinoiscentral]

:hehe:...I didn't notice that...
Yes...I will post my Nike Skeets...:hehe:

Woody

 

[deeelare]

Well,
I think the avatars should be anything, as long as they are appropriate.
I enjoy being able to put a dirtbike on mine,a as this shoes who I am.
Woody

This is a Trainz Forum , want to post a dirtbike , log-in to the Ducati forum , and/or Honda ! And if you want to shoes how you am , give your post some thought !

--- ,DLR

 

[illinoiscentral]

Now hold on there Deeelare, although it is a Trainz Forum...the avatar is designed to show who a person's personality is...that is what it is there for...if you are a Union Pacific fan, you wouldn't have the BNSF engine as your avatar would you? You would have the UP engine.
See what I am saying?
People choose avatars based on their personality or what they like.


Woody

 

[Sourdough]

Reminds me of work....new people come in and tell us about how they did it at such and such place and that's how we should do it here.....

 

[illinoiscentral]

Well, yes, that is how it should be done, it would make it a little more interesting and I know a few people who like the idea. Where are you guys when I need you?!:hehe: Anyway, It is a good idea, plus it is a no harm suggestion, except for the nay-sayers who always have something negative to say about everything.


Cheers,
Woody

 

[Sourdough]

Nope...no harm in suggesting it. Just reminded me of work is all....probably should have been posted in the Suggestion Boxcar forum....

 

[0099]

Now hold on there Deeelare, although it is a Trainz Forum...the avatar is designed to show who a person's personality is...that is what it is there for...if you are a Union Pacific fan, you wouldn't have the BNSF engine as your avatar would you? You would have the UP engine.
See what I am saying?
People choose avatars based on their personality or what they like.


Woody

I don't think mine will be allowed then due to people being underage on the forums

 

[gary6204]

if this idea would go through, there would have to be some one checking for inapropiate avatars, or ones that would bring war.

 

[pommie]

It seems that the 600x100 image allowed in your sig is not enough ??

Cheers David

 

[backyard]

No way...

I'm not bringing Agent Ziva David over hear!

I've got only one word for dirt bikes....Kawasaki...shoes that!

 

[Johnk]

illinoiscentral, I hardly think a dirt bike would give people the the slightest clue about your personality, age or anything else for that matter. Avatars were originally conceived so that people could put a mug-shot of themselves there so that everyone knew whether they were male, female, young or old. Putting a dirt bike up as an avatar is as useless as a 30 year old woman using a photo of her cat or dog on a dating site.

Unless I'm the only one who thinks this way, I think the Trainz Avatar system is the best around. Although it forces people to choose from a piece of railroad equipment, it allows them to express their particular persuasion; US, British, Australian etc., along with the railway they're interested in.

Please let's leave it at that. The forum has enough problems with oversize signatures, and let's face it, even a 100 x 100 avatar can be a 100kb or more if someone used a multi-frame animated gif.

The best run forums I've seen, ban any kind of image and just get down to the job of helping one another.

 

[Red_Rattler]

Leave avatars as they are.

The forum has enough problems with oversize signatures, and let's face it, even a 100 x 100 avatar can be a 100kb or more if someone used a multi-frame animated gif.

Ditto. One important thing people must remember with GIF images, is that they can affect people with medical problems. Slow GIFs may be okay, but I can almost guarantee that some members would have too many pictures in it, causing it to flash too fast. They would not be able help themselves to attempt to get as many pictures in as possible.

I/Central, you claim the avatars won't be too big, but just go and look through many signatures on here, and see for yourself. And before you say you can disable signatures, what about those who have useful links in their signatures?

I'm sure you will have people complaining about their dial-up, but honestly, I run a slow connection and still enjoy it, and quite frankly could care less.

Large pictures (be they signatures or not) can also affect broadband. How? Because quite a lot of ISP's charge for uploads as well as downloads. And some ISPs also charge for extra if you go over the quota per month.

Illinioscentral, I'd like to get your opinion on those who for various reasons have to use plans such as those that count uploads & downloads in their monthly quota. Are you saying "stuff" these people on these plans?

I have enough trouble if a post needs editing. Often they fail to edit when you press submit.

Please consider this request!

N.O.!

To add Illinoiscentral, you named the thread "A Forum Improvement...Suggestion to Auran.". Yet your original post is only about having larger pictures, and custom avatars. So why not a more suitable title?

 

[Johnk]

I'm one of the people Red_Rattler refers to. I pay $50 per month for 5 Gigabytes UP and DOWN. I'm sure you know that I run a Trainz Community web site. I have to read the forums every day and I have to leave the signatures on so that I can find other Community web sites to add to the Directory.

I'm not even able to look at the screenshots because some are so large my entire bandwidth entitlement would vanish in two weeks.

I'm not crying poor me here, there are hundreds of users still connected to dialup connections. I think the forums have enough problems as it is without adding to them with even more workload.

 

[Sampug394]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

You know, All this Complaining makes me wonder if they Understand the 'OPTIONAL AVATAR DISPLAY FUNCTION'. :n:

I have Wireless Internet, and Avatars are no Issue to Load.

I personally Support this Idea, especially seeing that I am an Avid Train Pixeler Myself, I support a Little Custom Individuality.

CUSTOM IMAGES help make a Forum Experience less Drab/Boring for the users.


And BTW, My Pixel Drawings area almost NEVER Tall, But They Are a Least More than 100 pixels in Height.

Example?

THIS IS 135x761 PIXELS. I may not use an Image this long, But 130 Pixels is STILL ACCEPTABLE. ESPECIALLY if it's a .bmp File, which is a Type that Loads Considerably Easier than others, Like .jpegs and Whatnot.

Nice Colourful Pictures like these Don't Make a Giant Impact on Forum Performance, and they are Pleasent to Look at. PLUS, They don't Take up much space if you Do Pixel Drawings like I do...

 

[PerRock]

You know, All this Complaining makes me wonder if they Understand the 'OPTIONAL AVATAR DISPLAY FUNCTION'. :n:

I have Wireless Internet, and Avatars are no Issue to Load.

I personally Support this Idea, especially seeing that I am an Avid Train Pixeler Myself, I support a Little Custom Individuality.

CUSTOM IMAGES help make a Forum Experience less Drab/Boring for the users.


And BTW, My Pixel Drawings area almost NEVER Tall, But They Are a Least More than 100 pixels in Height.

Example?

THIS IS 135x761 PIXELS. I may not use an Image this long, But 130 Pixels is STILL ACCEPTABLE. ESPECIALLY if it's a .bmp File, which is a Type that Loads Considerably Easier than others, Like .jpegs and Whatnot.

Nice Colourful Pictures like these Don't Make a Giant Impact on Forum Performance, and they are Pleasent to Look at. PLUS, They don't Take up much space if you Do Pixel Drawings like I do...

Besides being too tall your example image above's file size is too big for signatures. I'm not sure why you all are complaining. you should be happy with what you have. for a while the largest a sig could be here was 60px high.

About the avatars; are you wanting the ability to upload pictures in place of the avatars; or just new avatars? if the latter you can; just send your picture (which you have the rights to redistribute) to the help desk. There are rules to the sizes and such out lined in the CoC. As for larger pictures. the way the forum is set up they really wouldn't work. The space between posts would be huge. making reading of threads horrible. which is another reason why the sigs are kept small.

If you are making your own images to use as sig or avatar; it isn't that hard to eiher: a) make them smaller, b) resize them to fit.

peter

PS; actually jpegs and gifs are both designed to load quicker and be easier for browsers to use then bitmaps.