Avatar Example: International "No Fluff Monkeys Allowed" Symbol
We have had several questions about the cartoonish site-generated avatars that appear next to users comments and other areas on the site.
For those that are not familiar with avatars, they are used on-line as a graphical representation of the user. Avatars range from actual photos of the user to ideas, concepts or virtual representations the users want to project. Avatars are commonly seen in forums, as well as other on-line venues, and allow each person to personalize their Internet persona.
The problem as some see it with the traditional avatar is each avatar is site specific. As people frequent an increasing number of sites, those that wish to be represented by an avatar have to individually upload an avatar to each particular site they visit.
Some software engineers recently developed a service by which user’s avatars can become global avatars. The new term for these global avatars is Gravatar. Gravatars are tied to a user’s email address. The cartoonish avatars visible on this site are Gravatars and were automatically generated from each user’s email address.
In order to change the Gravatar to something more personal, it is necessary to take a few minutes and setup an account at http://en.gravatar.com/. Setting up the account is free and only takes a few seconds. Once an account is established users can upload any avatar they wish. Your new Gravatar will automatically appear on this site, and any other site that is Gravatar enabled, assuming the email address associated with your Gravatar is the same address used for site registration.
For those that wish to have more than one Gravatar, the service allows multiple email addresses and Gravatars for each account.
For this site in particular, obtaining a Gravatar will synchronize the users avatar for the site and the forums.
Thanks for the explanation…..it was informative.
The guy who conceived of avatars…
..should be pushed to the ground and kicked repeatedly