sofaking wrote:

This is dedicated to rip, and our shared love of unicorns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TagemN7kkw

That was awesome sofa. I can't quite figure out how to use this site yet. It's like moving into a new house.

sofaking wrote:

But I know the functionality kicks ass, and we can have avatars! I'm still trying to talk Choad into it.

Those things consume one third of the screen realestate, at least configured the way punbb rolls out of the box. And right down the middle, too. Lemme see if there's some other way to do it.

Do you -really- want to see the image you know Dhal will post?

Sofabutt, that clip was the best yet. Where the fuck do you find this stuff and still have time to do a fatboy. OOOOh, nevermind...

I was under the impression that avatars were carved in stone. I feel sure that was the reason for the mass exodus from Cruel.

They do not suck up resources, but they do suck, depending.

If a mere 25k image is loaded into your browser, then that's pretty much it. If you run a forum and don't want to waste bandwidth on them at all, then that's fine too. I said this back over at Cruel, but I'll be a little more specific here. Avatars and sigs are "teh ghey," but only if they're used as crappily and self-indulgently as at the sites we usually see them. I think their purpose has been ruined by MyRapes and FarceBook.

To me, they are nothing more than an identifying feature. Maybe wrong, maybe misinterpreted, but still something you get to choose for others to see. I don't like leaving my impressions to the random language of screennames. "Choad" sounds like "CHUD" and "Sofaking" invokes a cross between "So faking" and "Sofa King." The problem is not that I can't immediately understand their history or meaning, but that people who would want to join us [read as: "fresh meat"] won't.

An avatar seems like a silly, useless picture, but it's also a way to assert oneself, and I'm quite sure post-Cruelers want that, however privately. Since so much of what we do online is visual (YouTube vids, pix, foul remarks, etc.), to deliberately avoid another form of mental association is unimaginative...and that's not something I'd ever accuse people like Fnord or Fortinbras of being.

You've heard this before: "We're here, we're queer..." blah blah blah. I think the desire to go without avatars and sigs (tho not 'Smilies,') is a form of hiding. If the point is to simply NOT look like other boards, then OK...but I really can't think of a group of people I've wanted to see more of, and not just their actual portraits. Maybe I'm just being greedy or facile, but what Cruel was transcended gender, orientation, education, and politics. Maybe avatars were too easy. [/self-indulgent rant]

Last edited by pALEPHx (2007-10-06 05:04:46)