Easygoing Eyebeast *i Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 Are no longer permitted. If you have one, please switch to a static image. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast VCH Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 Yeah, they are extremely lame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan inni Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 fixed. i will miss some of them... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Rowen Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 Awww, now Pikachu is crying. Sorry if the earlier moving avatar was bothering anyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Swimmin' Salmon Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 Wow. Thanks to all the abusers out there. Yet another place on the internet where a few bad apples ruin our privilege of showing freedom of expression by taking it to an extreme. Why not just get rid of the problem makers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Rowen Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 Could someone PM me and fill me in on what happened? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast *i Posted March 26, 2010 Author Share Posted March 26, 2010 Quote: Wow. Thanks to all the abusers out there. Yet another place on the internet where a few bad apples ruin our privilege of showing freedom of expression by taking it to an extreme. The problem was from both the abusers, as you said, but also the raw numbers. I've received some comments that they are becoming distracting, so I think it best to pull the plug before things get out of hand. This way our board is more friendly to our viewers. EDIT: Also, I should remind people that I generally don't discuss any actions taken against certain members so as to avoid embarrassment. Exceptional cases aside, I prefer not to publicly rebuke people for misconduct. Finally, Salmon, your avatar was fine. I would be okay if everyone had one similar to yours. However, it becomes very difficult for me to set hard rules about which ones are fine and which are not. Unfortunately, the only way to avoid complete arbitrariness is a blanket ban on them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Swimmin' Salmon Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 I understand why you took an action. I just disagree with the type of action. It's a philosophical thing. I would have expected that a PM to the offenders would have worked, especially from you. Had I received such a request, I would have complied immediately. As it is now, I can point some fairly accurate fingers at those who, through their actions, have restricted the privileges of the non-abusers. I'm not sure that is the best result. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Student of Trinity Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 I think the concern is not really that a few people have recently shown extravagant avatars, as that a clear trend towards more of them was becoming evident. At the current level, yes, individual PMs would do the job fine (and in fact, have been doing it). But at the rate we're going, sending PMs to newbies about their garish animations would have become a full time job within a few months. Well, okay, we don't gain new members that fast. But this is the point: more distracting animations were steadily becoming more common, and *i's decision was to nip a problem in the bud, rather than wait for the crisis. That's the kind of proactive decision everyone agrees good leaders are supposed to make, except that everyone also agrees that good leaders should never overreact. If the crisis never materializes, how do you know whether it was prevented by wise early action, or whether its failure to arise proves the action was unnecessary? A decent modern board engine would give every member the ability to turn individual avatar animations on or off at will. Then we'd be fine. I don't know when that will come. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan Monroe Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 So they were a distraction? That's kind of ironic. I always figured message boards in general were just giant distractions. Well, at least now people won't be distracted from the main distraction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Student of Trinity Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 Some of these things are fine; Salmon's, in particular, was cool but easy on the eyes. Others may be cute at first, but quickly get irritating. One or two on a page isn't a big deal, but the day when most avatars on the page are jumping around and flashing, well, I'm happy that day won't come. Or were you one of those people who thought blinking text html tags were the best thing since Gutenberg? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan Monroe Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 I'm one of those people that likes all the new sparkle graphics that have been infesting Jeff's games lately. Flashy and/or sparkly things strike me as innately good. To each his own, I suppose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Acky Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 By distractions, meaning they were making pages run slow? Because if they were eye sores, it would be just as easy to look on the other side of the page. Or, better yet, the actual text in the post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dintiradan Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 Originally Posted By: Master Ackrovan By distractions, meaning they were making pages run slow? Because if they were eye sores, it would be just as easy to look on the other side of the page. Or, better yet, the actual text in the post. One simple trick is to hit [ESC] after the page loads. This stops GIFs from animating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Student of Trinity Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 See, that's what's annoying about distracting animations. You can't just look away, because this thing bouncing around in your peripheral vision keeps pulling your eyes away. It makes it take effort to read the text. Effort is bad. Perhaps I can forestall gruesome threats by making clear that I did not originate the ban on animated avatars. I'm just a self-appointed spokesperson on this topic for the mod hive mind. I didn't know about this [ESC] trick. Does it work on all platforms? If the default were not to animate gifs, and hitting ESC would turn them on, then at least to me that would be an adequate alternative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Ephesos Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 Another simple trick is to just AdBlock any annoying avatars. I've done if before, and I'm likely to do it again. That said, I rather enjoyed some of the avatars. There were just a few that made my eyes bleed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dintiradan Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity I didn't know about this [ESC] trick. Does it work on all platforms? If the default were not to animate gifs, and hitting ESC would turn them on, then at least to me that would be an adequate alternative. The Google knows all! (The about:config trick only works on Firefox; doesn't seem you can do it on a per-site basis without AdBlock/Greasemonkey). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dantius Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 I was extremely, extremely tempted to set a screenshot of a Na'vi from Avatar as my avatar and ask if thatkind of animated avatar would be acceptable. But I decided not to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast The Mystic Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 This avatar stuff doesn't really apply in my case, seeing as I don't bother with one. Although, using Dikiyoba's fanfics as a guide, I considered (eventually) making myself an animated avatar showing the Exile series' giant rat dragging a large backpack across the graphic. I guess that's a moot point now. Having said that, I really had no problems with anyone's avatars, animated or otherwise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Swimmin' Salmon Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity That's the kind of proactive decision everyone agrees good leaders are supposed to make, except that everyone also agrees that good leaders should never overreact. If the crisis never materializes, how do you know whether it was prevented by wise early action, or whether its failure to arise proves the action was unnecessary? A decent modern board engine would give every member the ability to turn individual avatar animations on or off at will. Then we'd be fine. I don't know when that will come. 1. Clearly not everyone thinks totalitarianism is a good working model of governance. Slowly removing options, and freedoms, from the population at large is not an attractant. 2. Technology is a crutch, and not a replacement for good behavior. A modern society isolates law breakers, attempting correction, but always recognizing that they may have to stay removed from society. 3. It is a moot point, though, as Jeff's games aren't designed to run on my system, and the directed evolution of this community is not one I find myself enjoying. It was fun while it lasted, but now, not so much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast VCH Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 They're avatars man, chill out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan Monroe Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 It starts at avatars, but in no time they're coming for your children in the night! Really, though, this forum went for years without any kind of avatars, right? One's personality should be animated enough that visual aids aren't needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast *i Posted March 27, 2010 Author Share Posted March 27, 2010 Salmon -- This is a company message board on privately owned servers. The analogy to government does not really apply here as no one has a right to do whatever they want on someone else's server. If you own a wall, I certainly do not have a right to plaster it with advertisements without your permission. What's important is we have message boards where Spiderweb Software's customers can come find information about the games and interact with other fans. Decisions have to be made that keep the forums an aesthetically pleasing (e.g. not full of distracting avatars) place. The growing trend of animated avatars was conflicting with this requirement. There is nothing fundamentally new here. We have had this since the beginning of the Ikonboards. You say we should remove the troublemakers, however, that is impossible without being completely arbitrary in this case. What objective measure can we use to judge which animated avatars are fine and which are disruptive? While one can say there is arbitrariness involved with enforcing rules on obscene content, and you are somewhat right, there are generally agreed upon societal standards. With animated avatars, it is incredibly difficult to draw the line because it has completely to do with aesthetics. I'm uncomfortable making decrees based on pure, one-off opinions. At least with this, we have a clear standard to base decisions from. If removing the privilege to have an animated avatar offends you, I'm sorry about that. Certainly, it's good to have a solid community. We are all in agreement on that. That's why we don't go back to the old rules of allowing only posts related to the games, and we have no plans to push things to that extreme. All that is removed is the ability to have an animated avatar since these can be distracted. People are still allowed to express themselves with static avatars, of course. I will make it clear that there is no directed effort on the part of the moderators to engineer the community itself beyond removing those whose behaviors become too disruptive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan Monroe Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 Originally Posted By: *i I will make it clear that there is no directed effort on the part of the moderators to engineer the community itself beyond removing those whose behaviors become too disruptive. It's kind of sad that you felt you even had to state that fact for the record. I feel for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dantius Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 Originally Posted By: Monroe It starts at avatars, but in no time they're coming for your children in the night! First, they came for those with animated avatars, but I did not speak out, because I did not have an animated avatar. Next, they came for those with long signatures, but I did not speak out, because I did not have a long signature. Then, they came for those who changed their name regularly, but I did not speak out, because I did not change my name regularly. And then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me. You have no idea how hard it wad to type and proof that on an itouch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk nikki. Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 Originally Posted By: Dantius First, they came for those with animated avatars, but I did not speak out, because I did not have an animated avatar. Next, they came for those with long signatures, but I did not speak out, because I did not have a long signature. Then, they came for those who changed their name regularly, but I did not speak out, because I did not change my name regularly. And then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me. My English teacher had a poster of Martin Niemöller's version of that poem. I was 11 or 12 whilst in her class, and the poster used to terrify me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Student of Trinity Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 Actually, of course, we are directedly evolving you all into an army of cyborg drones, with which to invade and conquer the forums of rival game companies. We'll start small, picking off other indy groups; but as we absorb them, we will grow, and take on steadily larger targets. If *i's calculations are correct, six months after we ban signatures and the letter 'e' from here, we'll have the entire subscription base of World of Warcraft. And then Jeff will get his Heroic Death's Verdict, and we will rest with the will of our master finally achieved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Mea Tulpa Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 STUDENT OF TALKING TERMININITY OVER EARLYFINITY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast The Mystic Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 Originally Posted By: Dantius Next, they came for those with long signatures, but I did not speak out, because I did not have a long signature. I know I might have a lot to say about that, should it happen. Quote: Then, they came for those who changed their name regularly, but I did not speak out, because I did not change my name regularly. Alorael would really be in trouble on this one. The again, he could use his mod powers to fight it should such a horrible thing come to pass (though hopefully it won't; I enjoy wondering what his new PDN will be). Quote: And then they came for me Much easier said than done in my case. You can't abduct someone you can't find. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan Monroe Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 I notice Slarty still has an animated avatar... Do I get a reward for turning him in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk nikki. Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 Originally Posted By: Monroe I notice Slarty still has an animated avatar... Do I get a reward for turning him in? Haha! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Randomizer Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 You will all soon be replaced by Arancaytar's bots and there will be no more problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Alorael at Large Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 Long signatures have already been dealt with harshly. —Alorael, who has no particular feelings about avatars. He's just glad that the old era of painfully gigantic avatars is over. He's also quite relieved that Spiderweb does not fall into the category of forums in which huge images in signatures occupy more screen space than posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody waterplant Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 Originally Posted By: Monroe I notice Slarty still has an animated avatar... Do I get a reward for turning him in? I swear I just saw J.C.'s lips move... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall A less presumptuous name. Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 Originally Posted By: Alorael Spiderweb does not fall into the category of forums in which huge images in signatures occupy more screen space than posts. Let's all thank whatever divinity(ies) we may or may not believe in for that! Maybe that's the reason Spiderweb is the only place for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Sudanna Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 The more you say that, the more you tempt me. And fate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan cfgauss Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 Jeeze, I leave for a couple of days and this happens! Well, Crono is much more subdued now, are you happy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast *i Posted March 28, 2010 Author Share Posted March 28, 2010 Your avatar appears to be compliant. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seasoned Roamer The Ninjas Doom Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 this is just a Suggestion, but i think this should be stickied so newcomers know that Animated Avatars aren’t aloud here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk nikki. Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 Originally Posted By: Super Mega Doom newcomers know that they aren’t aloud here. Typo aside, this is a great statement to make about General. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Mea Tulpa Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 I think the more accurate statement is that nobody is aloud in General. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Kelandon Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 I have no particular feelings about avatars that move, but avatars that move and shout at you are below any reasonable standards. *grump grump* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan -=microphage=- Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 Actually Slarty's froze upside down within 24 hours of the general ban. I, after 2 years of having a tacky avatar was courteously requested in a PM to change it. I readily agreed and complied. (In my defense I must say I and others thought it funny. Playing game at torment level and cartoonishly bashing my head to pulp on keyboard.) On my machine it played through so fast that until I saw it on a "brand x" dialup machine where it was essentially r e a l l y s l l o o w w I agreed with it being tacky. Comparing SpidWeb forum leadership to Nazism is absurd. I, was a 'bad guy' avatar wise. I had a 'static' one for years and was encouraged by other members to spice it up with an animated one. At least make it glow or something. I started with a wind breaking smiley, then a cartoon of head smacking keyboard frustration. Until it was pointed out I thought nothing of it. Acts far exceeding cartoon violence are involved in all SpidWeb games. BUT, no gore splashes/decals. Yes, occult activities, but the triumph of good over evil. (At least the way I play it.) Sooo. I'm content without the splashymessness, somewhat competitive attitude of animated avatars. I think the 'throttling back' was done rather well and agree with it. I even agree that some avatars (other than mine) were actually irritating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dantius Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 Originally Posted By: -=microphage=- Comparing SpidWeb forum leadership to Nazism is absurd. This. Absolutely this. Pointless Godwin's law violations for every trivial thing irk me to no end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Enraged Slith Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 What about images that look like they're moving but they're really not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall The Ratt Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 If you can fit that as your avatar I'm all for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dantius Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith What about images that look like they're moving but they're really not? *snip* Actually, if you unfocus your eyes and remain very still, those images remain static. I find those sorts of tricks nearly as fun as the illusions themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Alorael at Large Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 Originally Posted By: The Ratt If you can fit that as your avatar I'm all for it. Done, but it loses something in the transition. —Alorael, who now has to fight off the urge to have a frequently-changing avatar. His self-portrait may or may not return shortly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan inni Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 Originally Posted By: How to space your words I His self-portrait may or may not return shortly. [action]gasp[/action] no.... wow, and i thought that you would always use that avatar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dantius Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 The only thing Alorael is confined to is his registration date and his title, which he can change, but won't. I think he did so a few months back to prove a point, but then switched it right back to "Postmaster General" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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