Your animated avater is distracting
- Thread starter jademunky
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Oh no, now the animated-avatar-brigade is assembled here... Sorry, I'm not reading on, it's a pain. I cannot stop my eyes to flashing over to most your avatars every 2 seconds no matter how hard I try. Even those "subtle" ones distract me.
This is one reason why I barely come here anymore, or go on message boards instead that don't allow animated avatars. The worst for me are the ones who allow screen-filling animated signatures. Come on, I'm here for your opinion, not your 3 favorite movie seconds looped over. Your avatar isn't supposed to be the center of attention, it's here to identify you.
I used to scroll and zoom into pages so I don't see them, but then I can't read names. Someone is going to rudely direct me to some super obvious box I can tick to disable them, but I'm too lazy and incompetent. If it takes me effort to bring someone into a readable state, I'll think twice about it.
ESC isn't working for me either.
This is one reason why I barely come here anymore, or go on message boards instead that don't allow animated avatars. The worst for me are the ones who allow screen-filling animated signatures. Come on, I'm here for your opinion, not your 3 favorite movie seconds looped over. Your avatar isn't supposed to be the center of attention, it's here to identify you.
I used to scroll and zoom into pages so I don't see them, but then I can't read names. Someone is going to rudely direct me to some super obvious box I can tick to disable them, but I'm too lazy and incompetent. If it takes me effort to bring someone into a readable state, I'll think twice about it.
ESC isn't working for me either.
- Mar 31, 2010
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It's pretty easy to disable avatars, just go into your profile, click 'Forum and Notification options' and then the top option gives you the choice to disable 'em. Great for when you've accidentally pressed the red button ;-)Malkav said:
I used to have a static avatar, but then I found my current one and haven't looked back. Nothing compares to little Nyx trotting happily along. Just look at her. How can you not well up with hrng at how cute that is?
As for finding them distracting: Only when I see one I haven't seen before. The whole avatar column just gets zoned out when I'm reading threads. The size, shape, colour and (where applicable) motion is all held on the periphery of my vision and is how I actually identify people. I rarely look directly at an avatar when paying attention to a thread.
As for finding them distracting: Only when I see one I haven't seen before. The whole avatar column just gets zoned out when I'm reading threads. The size, shape, colour and (where applicable) motion is all held on the periphery of my vision and is how I actually identify people. I rarely look directly at an avatar when paying attention to a thread.
I wasn't aware of this before. Apparently, if you vocalize an issue you have with something, it must be your number one concern in life. I'll be sure to keep that in mind the next time someone complains about the weather or has a gripe with a videogame.Daystar Clarion said:
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I can't stand excessively animated, long, or flashy .gif avatars. The focus should be on the post; animated avatars take the attention away from the post itself and instead put it on the content's author. It's not unlike how some writers have their names written larger than the name of the story on their book covers. Their names are moving units, not their content, and I don't think it should be that way - especially not on a message board.
[small]Addendum: Unobtrusive gifs, such as dark colors, small size, or only slight animations don't apply. If it's not prominent in one's peripheral vision while reading, it's not an issue.[/small]
I tend to just block any obnoxious avatars.
Various plug-ins for browsers allow you to block images or anything of that nature you don't wish to see.
Various plug-ins for browsers allow you to block images or anything of that nature you don't wish to see.
A couple border on hypnotic, but as a rule, no. I can see where they might distract someone, but it doesn't get to me. Maybe I'm not easily distr...Oh, SHINY!
I agree with you, animated avatars are the same thing as auto-starting video ads in my eyes. It bothers me - which is why you have my eternal gratitude for telling me about the esc-trick. I had no idea, and it works perfectly!jademunky said:
I don't think he made that kind of claim, honestly. I would assume that you'd be concerned about having a pebble in your shoe, but you wouldn't necessarily judge it the "height of your concern". It is possible to be bothered by several things at once, and it is even possible to be more bothered by some bothers than others.Daystar Clarion said:
While that is a good tip, I wish there'd be a button to specifically disable animated avatars. I don't mind avatars in general - they're a good identifier that saves you from reading someone's user name over and over in an extended discussion. Animated avatars don't add any value to that function, though.JoJo said:
Yeah. Jazz hands dog should learn to live with the pebble stuck in his rear paw as well. Pressing esc is a viable workaround, but it is a lot of work having to press it every single time you switch or update a page. It adds up, since it's an additional task you have to remember doing over and over and over and over and over again.djl3485 said:
His wit and arguments were so overwhelmingly powerful that we had to ban him within hours of his second appearance to stop mass shame suicides. That's how excellent of a poster he was.RedDeadFred said:
Mhm, hello boys... -WINKY FACE-
But yeah, I have this avatar in order to distract peoplefrom the bank vault they are guarding because it's amusing. And also it steals your soul.
But yeah, I have this avatar in order to distract people
If anyone can find a better Spike gif than Dragon Knight Spike, which the lame Escapist server can't handle because of the raw sex appeal in each frame, then please let me know. Animated stuff is much more distinctive. Maybe if I had one, senpai would notice me.
I'm sure not bothered by them.
I'm sure not bothered by them.
There's a few people on this site whose avatars annoy me(both animated and not) however I typically tend to post in places that they are not so I avoid that annoyance.
If you are using chrome and go to the chrome webstore, there are a few extensions there that will block gifs(and it's most likely a universal block).
As for my avatar, it is a gif that I made and had @Drummodino: re-size for me because I only know how to make gifs in gimp. And mine is simply just a gif of the A.I. Theta(from RvB) falling off his skateboard. The original image is this:
It's nice and darkly coloured and not real flashy I probably could have done it better so that it looped continuously but I didn't feel like it so I left it as that.
It adds to my obsessive flailing over red vs blue but that's about all it adds. And I like looking at it. Tired of looking at avatars of my face. But it was a toss up between that and a random gif I found of someone reading that actually looped really well.
Then again, avatars don't really distract me that much(unless they annoy the shit out of me). I think it winds down to personal preference thought on if they are annoying or not.
If you are using chrome and go to the chrome webstore, there are a few extensions there that will block gifs(and it's most likely a universal block).
As for my avatar, it is a gif that I made and had @Drummodino: re-size for me because I only know how to make gifs in gimp. And mine is simply just a gif of the A.I. Theta(from RvB) falling off his skateboard. The original image is this:
It's nice and darkly coloured and not real flashy I probably could have done it better so that it looped continuously but I didn't feel like it so I left it as that.
It adds to my obsessive flailing over red vs blue but that's about all it adds. And I like looking at it. Tired of looking at avatars of my face. But it was a toss up between that and a random gif I found of someone reading that actually looped really well.
Then again, avatars don't really distract me that much(unless they annoy the shit out of me). I think it winds down to personal preference thought on if they are annoying or not.
I honestly have no idea what you're implying here.
...or maybe I was too distracted by my avatar to process anything...
...or maybe I was too distracted by my avatar to process anything...
I will say that I find them "distracting" in the sense that if the person has an animated avatar it's more likely I won't learn their screen name and, in my eyes, they will forever be the person with the Tetris avatar or the Full Metal Jacket avatar. But I don't find them distracting in the same way that the OP does. I've never been in the middle of reading a post and then forgot what I just read because they have an animated avatar. That requires a really short attention span, I imagine.
I'm able to mentally tune them out. To be honest I'd probably make animated avatars for myself if I had access to an easy enough tool for it. Unfortunately the only way I know to create animated GIFs is to painstakingly craft the individual frames and then use an online program to compile them, which just isn't worth it.
It doesn't seem to work in Firefox either, at least not for me, only IE. Not that I really care.TopazFusion said: