Avatar issue

[luke]

recently there arises an issue of big and annoying avatar being used here at recom and when it's pointed out, the reply was recom didn't put the limit on the size of avatar ... am I the only one who can see that one long paragraph describing what kind of image we can put as our avatar? please .. this is not like those old kindergarten days when you can say "cikgu tak cakap pun" .. we are all of the age range that should reflect the future malaysians .. do we really need to be guidelined on this EVERY LITTLE THING .. owh wait there's a guideline .. ok I rephrase that: do we really need to be told to follow the guideline, which is served right in front of our eyes?

you might have noticed I almost always reject suggestions on modifying Forums thingy .. have you ever wondered why? it's simply because I can't fulfill those .. I'm not Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or (put name here) .. I only have limited programming skills plus this whole phpNuke and phpBB architecture are developed by other people and IMO it's 300% more difficult to edit someone's code then to create the code from scratch (given we have the skills) ... in other words, I don't know what scripts do the upload thingy and which function handle everything about it ... I know it can be discovered if I am to put all my efforts in it but there's this 2nd reason why I don't want to code the resize thingy ...

it's just avatar .. and graphic processing is not cheap (in term of server power) .. you might have heard that ReCom had experienced problems with its previous web host because of inefficient codes (thanks to me who have to make changes all over the place to fulfill site requests) .. and furthermore, the most important point, "don't we have common sense?" ... we are here to discuss stuff, not to show off our capability of finding cool avatar using Google! this is a youth portal, not a children submit-your-drawing Nickelodeon website .. is it not enough to just follow the 70x70 rules .. if the image is too big, then don't use .. find other image ... as simple as that .. aiya, I'm wondering myself WTH am I doing right now typing this long post just about AVATAR .. ok I might as well click the Submit button .. soory for any typo because I just didn't bother to check ..

[iQing]

is my avatar ok?
it?s slightly a bit big but it doesn?t distract people....

nvm...

so what if we have great avatar?
the most important part is our discussion...
some even have big giant size signature.....

neh... i think i am talking nonsense here as well...
clicking the submit button...

[chenchow]

I fully agree with Luke.

ReComers, whom many of us, are mature citizen of Malaysia and of the world, and hence, we should believe in practising our freedom, with some resonsibility.

Should we ever say "Let me try and see whether the anchors care?" "Let me try and see when I would be scolded? and then I can make a fuss" ..... All these are useless thinking. It is just as if "Oh, there is no police around, so I can speed...." So what, it is your life that you should take care of...

We hope that everyone can exercise restraint... Having avatar that takes half a screen would only show your intolerance to others... Why should we be governed, when we ourselves can think and decide? Should we ever try to find the loopholes and exploit?

[pandaboy]

hey luke..
sorry man...
i'm the one who kept on suggesting about modifying the forum thingy.... It's just a suggestion...as u know, i dun know as much as u about computers...i dont study computer stuffs....
Anyway, i think i did ask whether this can be done or not...but if it cant be done, then .....just reject my suggestion lor....
Anyway, im sorry for all those suggestions.

About the avatar, i myself did have a large avatar which i didnt realise at first. but i've resized it as soon as luke pointed it out to me. anyway, i think my avatar should stick to this size at the time being...

to others, pls resize ur avatar....... dont link directly images from other sites as they are usually large. Save it into ur com, resize it then upload to www.photobucket.com or just resize it and upload to recom. If there's any problem about the avatar upload, pm and let me know. I'll try to help whenever I can.

And have to say this again for the anchors. Please follow the guidelines. They are written for u guys to read and follow, not as decorative purposes.

[kelvinlym]

luke,

I know it's tough maintaining a site, especially a site so big as this coded by someone else.

But spare us some of the sarcasm man. Maybe you had a bad day or you feel you don't receive enough recognition for your work. (I salute u guys man, after all coming up with something like this is no trivial stuff)

There are ppl who like to show off (me included). There's a reason for ppl buying big cars and having young wives. And some ppl just like to have their own avatar to show their individualism.

I personally don't care how much someone else wanna show off, but in this case of the avatar thing, it's just an unwritten rule that has been misinterpreted. You expect the uploaded avatars to be a certain size, but a loophole was found if you linked off site. So those who wanna be different and not conform to the crowd exploited this.

Well, if it bothers you it's good that you say it rather than keeping it to yourself. At least now we know that big avatars actually bothers ppl.

Thanks for the heads up. Keep up the good work. And I'll keep my avatars small and static.

[jiinjoo]

There are ppl who like to show off (me included). There's a reason for ppl buying big cars and having young wives. And some ppl just like to have their own avatar to show their individualism.
Reminds me of the scene where a few aunties sit at a table and one of them kept hurting her finger... while the rest stare at her finger while they have their conversation...

just to clarify, the large images linked from other sites don't hurt recom bandwidth, but the other site's bandwidth AND slows down all our user's response time.

another thought - avatar is more of a "hint" to who you are - people remember pictures better than words so if you are persistent with an avatar, people will read your post and associate your opinions with that 70x70 picture. Having a simple static straight forward avatar only helps you establish your identity and earn respect from others. don't you think so?

[luke]

I agree with jiinjoo about the representation thingy ..

anyway, I've modified the forum code and now any avatar larger than 72x72 (extra 2) will be CLIPPED, not resized .. hope this will end the issue .. however, if your avatar takes 10MB to load, user browsers still have to download all the 10MB ... so in the end, it's your responsibility to choose an appropriate avatar ... what I did to the code is just to make sure anyone who tries not to follow the rule won't gain anything good ..

[ElansarGelmir]

Just realized that my avatar has been clipped, even though the size's just about 90X100... nvm, just changed to another one... i hope it's alright. it's just 10 KB though (is it ok?).

[pandaboy]

haha...my avatar still looks ok wor...even though after Clipped...
Yeah...agree with Jiin Joo too....
Nowadays I really dun like ppl who shows off la...recently got into an argument with a guy who always show off... sigh..

[budakkerek]

hehe..my avatar, made ppl think imma guy...what do you say to THAT?

jiinjoo, everytime i come across ur name, i think of calvin
Luke, a baby (coz he likes the baby pic LOL )
Elansar, the dragon
chenchow, the cute smiling specky guy
masterof_none, the mario thingy

and the list goes on

stimes i dont even look at the names, just the avatars, and yet i know who's who..shows' how NOT CHANGING UR AVATAR MUCH does hv a purpose - it helps keep u in mind easier! :wink:

Anyway, Luke..hope you're oke now...love what you're doing to recom.. :D

[ElansarGelmir]

my dragon's too big liao.... now the humming birds... i like flying objects... maybe it's because i love flying (with my wings, if i have one)...