Having avatars really made a difference in seeing people's personalities. I came to associate people with their little picture.

I'm wondering if it would be possible to reinstate avatars if they are a MUCH smaller space and size. Say, keep it down to 40x40 pixels and under 4k?

Oh come on... pleeeeeeease? :)

That was tried, but it didn't help.

:crying: sniffle sniffle. 2k?

Rofl! You know how small 2k is ? lol

My suggestion: MousePlanet gets off of a shared server for such a big site. I can't imagine they haven't gotten kicked off a shared server yet, and you can get a decent dedicated server from Rackshack.net for around $100-150/mo.

MAKE THE JUMP!

Would that really make the difference ?

Originally posted by zapppop
Would that really make the difference ?

You talking to me or the OP?

If you are talking to me, it'd make the world of difference. I used to run a site with a discussion board that had 300+ concurrent users at all time and we had a rackshack dedicated server and could've easily handled 200+ more with no problem.

We had unrestricted avatars under 100x100 and 20k and everyone utilized them. We also had almost all the vB options turned on. No slowdown at all (always transferring above 500kb/s for every person).

hee hee - see, my avatar is about 1.5 k so I'd be okay with that. ;)

(edit: not the one currently in there - but my new one I use on another board.)

Actually, your Avatar (the one currently in your profile) is 4.6k. Mine is 0.2k. :D

Originally posted by Bill Catherall
Actually, your Avatar (the one currently in your profile) is 4.6k. Mine is 0.2k. :D

Yeah - I know. Hence the added note so as to avoid confusion. Guess I was just a tad bit too late. ;)

I was going to go and change it - but it's disabled so I guess I'm stuck with that avatar until the end of time.

Originally posted by NMoreles
My suggestion: MousePlanet gets off of a shared server for such a big site. I can't imagine they haven't gotten kicked off a shared server yet, and you can get a decent dedicated server from Rackshack.net for around $100-150/mo.

MAKE THE JUMP!

I'm not about to go into details of our system architecture, but we are not on a shared server.

K, I know you don't want to get into it, but that is the worst dedicated server I've ever seen. Unless MP is running off of a commercial DSL line with a server from 3-4 years ago that someone used to own.

Any modern server on a decent connection that you can get today for under $100/mo (and I know ad revenue is above this point, I've used your advertisers before and still do currently) would be able to handle it just fine.

That's all I'm saying.

Nick, I think you should have a serious talk with the staff.
You sound like you may be able to resolve this issue.

The staff seems kind of hostile :( I do know more than enough about running large web sites (5+ million plus pageviews per month) because I've done it twice.

I know hosting it dirt cheap nowadays, and I know advertising sucks as well :(

I also know that this site MUST make enough to be pay for a much better server than whatever they have, but I do not claim to know their business model or what their profit margin aim is; that is the ONLY thing I can come up with as a reason we don't have a better MP server.

They are free to email me and I'll gladly give any advice/help they need.

Just want my avatars back :fez: even if I need to pay a small fee.

I may be wrong, but it seems like your problem is resource-wise and not bandwidth-wise? If it's bandwidth then I can solve that easily but hosting all avatars for you or recommending cheap alternatives for good bandwidth. If it's resource-wise, you need to get a better dedicated server, and they aren't out of your price range

We don't try to appear hostile--I'm sorry if it looks that way to you. We are aware, trust me, of the desire for the return of avatars and other features.

Nick, your offer is especially appreciated. I can't promise anything but I will be sure to bring it up with the rest of the staff.

NMoreles,

I want to second Andrew in saying that we don't intend to sound hostile.

But any time we say "sorry, can't do it" without explaining why, it is going to sound hostile.

Believe me, if anybody is aware of the options, costs, and benefits of various things, it is me and Tony. Unfortunately, you'll have to believe me that there are reasons they can't or won't be implemented at this time. Believe me further when I say that the day after that is no longer the case, we'll change it.

I just thought of something. Why don't you make it that you have to host it yourself (same principal as the inline images). Or would that also eat up bandwidth? :confused:

The problem isn't really with MousePlanet's bandwidth (although that is a concern). The real problem comes when you're reading a thread where every person who posts has an avatar--you have to download each of those image files, and there will be a lot of them. We have to be sensitive to those poor souls still in the dark ages of dialup, after all.

Originally posted by Andrew
The problem isn't really with MousePlanet's bandwidth (although that is a concern). The real problem comes when you're reading a thread where every person who posts has an avatar--you have to download each of those image files, and there will be a lot of them. We have to be sensitive to those poor souls still in the dark ages of dialup, after all.


Then could you have them only show in profiles?


(I dunno. If you were to return them that way, IMHO, it would be better. I personally dislike having the avaters under your username :D )

Originally posted by Andrew
The problem isn't really with MousePlanet's bandwidth (although that is a concern). The real problem comes when you're reading a thread where every person who posts has an avatar--you have to download each of those image files, and there will be a lot of them. We have to be sensitive to those poor souls still in the dark ages of dialup, after all.

I have stayed out of almost all bring back avatar threads because while I like them it doesn't really matter either way to me if we have them. I did want to say something since I am a poor soul who is still on dialup (because anything else is to expensive still).

I post on other sites that have avatars and I have had no problems with the speed of the pages loading. Now I don't remember if the pages were loading really slow before they were disabled, but I wanted to stick my .02 in.

Now back to your regularly scheduled semi-annual bring back the avatar discussion.

HBT, before avatars were disabled on this site, pages were loading very slowly, if at all. (I'm still on dialup too, but hopefully just for the next couple of months.) The other sites with avatars do load on my computer, but they are a little slower. Those sites probably have more bandwidth, though.

IMO, avatars aren't necessary. You can tell who's who by reading their username. I don't think that's much of an inconvenience, personally.

In the meantime, here's to us dialup folks getting with the times. :rolleyes:

I am and was on broadband when we had avatars and page loads were often painfully slow. Do I miss seeing the avatars? Yes. Do I like quick-loading pages better? Hell yeah!

The pages were very slow, painfully slow, really, really slow. I think avatars were one of the things mentioned along with limiting the number of days of old threads that get pulled up when you log in and a few other things.

I would like to see avatars, they can be fun. I do not want to go back to the log on issues we had right before they were disabled.

Ignorant question.. but forgive me I'm a scientist and can't help myself- what are Avartars. Are they those little cartoon like things I've seen on other sites? (IMOH they are distracting) I did try askjeeves but would have to down load them to find out what they are.

On this site, Avatars are (or were) little pictures that go right under your username in every post. If you click on a member's profile, some members still have their Avatars there.