Profile Avatars

[ZLoth]

The problem with the current 65×65 size is that it is now impossible to upload a license plate as part of your profile.

Ah well, I'll just use a smiley instead since my previous license plate image went to the great bit bucket.

[Amaury]

I think out of all the options, SimpleMachines just seemed the easiest, and was free to install/maintain where all the others required a purchase and subscription back then.

I personally like XenForo. Although there's hardly any activity now, KH-Vids, a forum I'm a member of, uses this software. It was previously on vBulletin 4 YEARS ago, and I think before that, it was on phpBB, but that would have been before I joined. I first joined in 2007, though I never really became active until 2011, and I believe it was on vBulletin 3 at the time.

Welp, lost my avatar today.  Shrunk it down to 65 x 54, used it as a .gif or .png, tried uploading to Flickr or Imgur and am still getting the error that the image isn't meeting whatever rules...

I personally use Gravatar for my avatars. It's great for me because I use the same avatar everywhere, so whenever I want to change my avatar, I can just upload a new one to Gravatar instead of going to each site I browse individually to change my avatar.

[Scott5114]

Welp, lost my avatar today.  Shrunk it down to 65 x 54, used it as a .gif or .png, tried uploading to Flickr or Imgur and am still getting the error that the image isn't meeting whatever rules...

I found one for you.

The problem with the current 65×65 size is that it is now impossible to upload a license plate as part of your profile.

You can make it 64×32.

[Roadgeekteen]

A large number of more forum users have had their profile pics wiped, which is making it feel strange sometimes to browse the forum. If you see this post, check if your profile pic has been wiped in case you wanted to add it back.

[Rothman]

A large number of more forum users have had their profile pics wiped, which is making it feel strange sometimes to browse the forum. If you see this post, check if your profile pic has been wiped in case you wanted to add it back.

I don't see the need for this type of post, since the thread would have popped up in anyone's unread list that hadn't logged in since the 14th...

[Big John]

I don't see the need for this type of post, since the thread would have popped up in anyone's unread list that hadn't logged in since the 14th...

with the new un-neutered avatar?

[hbelkins]

Mine hasn't changed. Not sure what the issue is.

[hotdogPi]

Mine didn't get removed until I edited my signature to change the list of the routes I've been on.

[Rothman]

Mine didn't get removed until I edited my signature to change the list of the routes I've been on.

Right.  It changes if you update your profile.

[vdeane]

Mine hasn't changed. Not sure what the issue is.

The forum no longer allows users to upload avatars.  Those of us who already have are grandfathered in, but as soon as any profile change is made, since the upload feature no longer works, it strips out the avatar.

Anyone who used a built-in avatar is unaffected.  I think linked avatars might depend on size; the size limitation seems to have been tightened down too.

[Roadgeekteen]

Mine hasn't changed. Not sure what the issue is.

The forum no longer allows users to upload avatars.  Those of us who already have are grandfathered in, but as soon as any profile change is made, since the upload feature no longer works, it strips out the avatar.

Anyone who used a built-in avatar is unaffected.  I think linked avatars might depend on size; the size limitation seems to have been tightened down too.

Might be a stupid question but why can't we anymore?

[vdeane]

Mine hasn't changed. Not sure what the issue is.

The forum no longer allows users to upload avatars.  Those of us who already have are grandfathered in, but as soon as any profile change is made, since the upload feature no longer works, it strips out the avatar.

Anyone who used a built-in avatar is unaffected.  I think linked avatars might depend on size; the size limitation seems to have been tightened down too.

Might be a stupid question but why can't we anymore?

It got lost in one of the times the forum had to be restored during The Bot Wars.

[Roadgeekteen]

Mine hasn't changed. Not sure what the issue is.

The forum no longer allows users to upload avatars.  Those of us who already have are grandfathered in, but as soon as any profile change is made, since the upload feature no longer works, it strips out the avatar.

Anyone who used a built-in avatar is unaffected.  I think linked avatars might depend on size; the size limitation seems to have been tightened down too.

Might be a stupid question but why can't we anymore?

It got lost in one of the times the forum had to be restored during The Bot Wars.

I was pretty absent from the forum during that time, I came back and everything looked different and I saw all the new threads in here talking about it. I wonder if any of you guys wondered if the forum would be lost forever.

[vdeane]

Mine hasn't changed. Not sure what the issue is.

The forum no longer allows users to upload avatars.  Those of us who already have are grandfathered in, but as soon as any profile change is made, since the upload feature no longer works, it strips out the avatar.

Anyone who used a built-in avatar is unaffected.  I think linked avatars might depend on size; the size limitation seems to have been tightened down too.

Might be a stupid question but why can't we anymore?

It got lost in one of the times the forum had to be restored during The Bot Wars.

I was pretty absent from the forum during that time, I came back and everything looked different and I saw all the new threads in here talking about it. I wonder if any of you guys wondered if the forum would be lost forever.

I actually did post a question on Facebook during one of the more severe downtimes (might have been the May one) regarding where we'd go if the forum didn't come back (since at the time, it did indeed seem like it wouldn't; Alex was pretty close to throwing in the towel at that point).  I don't recall getting a great answer.

[Roadgeekteen]

Mine hasn't changed. Not sure what the issue is.

The forum no longer allows users to upload avatars.  Those of us who already have are grandfathered in, but as soon as any profile change is made, since the upload feature no longer works, it strips out the avatar.

Anyone who used a built-in avatar is unaffected.  I think linked avatars might depend on size; the size limitation seems to have been tightened down too.

Might be a stupid question but why can't we anymore?

It got lost in one of the times the forum had to be restored during The Bot Wars.

I was pretty absent from the forum during that time, I came back and everything looked different and I saw all the new threads in here talking about it. I wonder if any of you guys wondered if the forum would be lost forever.

I actually did post a question on Facebook during one of the more severe downtimes (might have been the May one) regarding where we'd go if the forum didn't come back (since at the time, it did indeed seem like it wouldn't; Alex was pretty close to throwing in the towel at that point).  I don't recall getting a great answer.

Probably the freewayjim facebook group honestly. I created a roadgeek reddit subreddit that nobody has posted on that I may have tried to get some users for, but the forum's culture would be pretty much lost. There are other forum hosting services as well, our history might be gone but at least some semblence of a forum could be kept. Hopefully that doesn't happen though. Funny enough, during the May outage I was graduating from UMass. If I knew about the forum at the time anxiety about the forum may have disrupted my gradutation (I also got sick during graduation so that sucked).

[Rothman]

Mine hasn't changed. Not sure what the issue is.

The forum no longer allows users to upload avatars.  Those of us who already have are grandfathered in, but as soon as any profile change is made, since the upload feature no longer works, it strips out the avatar.

Anyone who used a built-in avatar is unaffected.  I think linked avatars might depend on size; the size limitation seems to have been tightened down too.

Might be a stupid question but why can't we anymore?

It got lost in one of the times the forum had to be restored during The Bot Wars.

I was pretty absent from the forum during that time, I came back and everything looked different and I saw all the new threads in here talking about it. I wonder if any of you guys wondered if the forum would be lost forever.

I actually did post a question on Facebook during one of the more severe downtimes (might have been the May one) regarding where we'd go if the forum didn't come back (since at the time, it did indeed seem like it wouldn't; Alex was pretty close to throwing in the towel at that point).  I don't recall getting a great answer.

Probably the freewayjim facebook group honestly.

Dear heavens.  Maybe you'll end up there, but I doubt the hobby would move to that one.

[Roadgeekteen]

Mine hasn't changed. Not sure what the issue is.

The forum no longer allows users to upload avatars.  Those of us who already have are grandfathered in, but as soon as any profile change is made, since the upload feature no longer works, it strips out the avatar.

Anyone who used a built-in avatar is unaffected.  I think linked avatars might depend on size; the size limitation seems to have been tightened down too.

Might be a stupid question but why can't we anymore?

It got lost in one of the times the forum had to be restored during The Bot Wars.

I was pretty absent from the forum during that time, I came back and everything looked different and I saw all the new threads in here talking about it. I wonder if any of you guys wondered if the forum would be lost forever.

I actually did post a question on Facebook during one of the more severe downtimes (might have been the May one) regarding where we'd go if the forum didn't come back (since at the time, it did indeed seem like it wouldn't; Alex was pretty close to throwing in the towel at that point).  I don't recall getting a great answer.

Probably the freewayjim facebook group honestly.

Dear heavens.  Maybe you'll end up there, but I doubt the hobby would move to that one.

Maybe a new Facebook group then. I've joined that group but never post or even look in there.

[hotdogPi]

I don't have a Facebook account and never plan to get one.

[Alex]

Our SMF guru rickmastfan67 would be the one to ask as to why the avatar settings are botched.

In the meantime, I can manually add an avatar to any account. You could pm me or email me and I'll set it for your account.

[Alex]

Update, I adjusted the "Uploadable avatars" settings so that members are allowed to upload an avatar to the server. I have also made sure that the custom_avatar directory is writeable in shell.

And to answer the question previously asked about uploaded avatar sizes, there are settings that we can adjust. They were previously set at 150 pixels for width and 80 pixels for height.

There is an option that can be checked to resize oversized large avatars, but this requires ImageMagick or another extension. I do have ImageMagick enabled on the server, but I suspect that it would take some code changes to make it accessible by SMF.

[Rothman]

Update, I adjusted the "Uploadable avatars" settings so that members are allowed to upload an avatar to the server. I have also made sure that the custom_avatar directory is writeable in shell.

And to answer the question previously asked about uploaded avatar sizes, there are settings that we can adjust. They were previously set at 150 pixels for width and 80 pixels for height.

There is an option that can be checked to resize oversized large avatars, but this requires ImageMagick or another extension. I do have ImageMagick enabled on the server, but I suspect that it would take some code changes to make it accessible by SMF.

Thanks again, Alex, for doing all that you do.

[kphoger]

I wonder if any of you guys wondered if the forum would be lost forever.

I didn't doubt that the guys would be able to bring it back.  But I was beginning to worry that Alex would soon just go, Pfft, screw it, this ain't worth the hassle anymore.

[Roadgeekteen]

Our SMF guru rickmastfan67 would be the one to ask as to why the avatar settings are botched.

In the meantime, I can manually add an avatar to any account. You could pm me or email me and I'll set it for your account.

He hasn't been active on the forum in a month. Unsure if there are other ways to contact him. My avatar is fine FYI.

[vdeane]

I wonder if any of you guys wondered if the forum would be lost forever.

I didn't doubt that the guys would be able to bring it back.  But I was beginning to worry that Alex would soon just go, Pfft, screw it, this ain't worth the hassle anymore.

Honestly, from what he was posting on Facebook around the time... he was pretty much on that edge.  I was pleasantly surprised when it came back.