“Avatar” on WP forum

[Roy]

Recently I noticed that “avatars” have been added to user profiles on this forum. Some people made something of it, others don’t. The latter isn’t so strange, because I can’t find where to change it…….?

[Chaz]

I am not that much of a tech head to have ever been aware of the Expires header, Keep-Alive, etc …

But I do know that the simplest and fastest way to display avatars is from my own server. Because WP is free, and incredibly popular, use of gravatars out here is simply to keep WP’s overhead costs down. It just makes profile editing more complicated than it needs to be because you have to set up another account and there are no instructions on our WP Profile edit pages to direct users to gravatar.com to post a “universal” avatar.

So, in terms of our own blogs, on our own sites, is there a way to simply an avatar image, from our own server or external url, without using gravatars?

[Samuel Wood (Otto)]

Because WP is free, and incredibly popular, use of gravatars out here is simply to keep WP’s overhead costs down.

Automattic (aka the WordPress group) bought and now owns gravatar.com. It’s hosted on the same systems as wordpress.com is.

The whole thing is part of their push to make WordPress more of a social web type of thing. The integration is a bit early on, which is why there’s no nice links and such yet. One step at a time.

WordPress.com profiles, BTW, are linked in with the gravatar systems. If you make yourself a profile picture on wordpress.com, then you just created yourself a gravatar as well.

[benchun]

Suggestion: in the WordPress Support forum profile editor (where people seem to have encountered this question), it probably makes sense to have a link to gravatar.com for people without gravatars. Then instead of clicking around and wondering if they are too dense to find the right link, they just get directed to the place where the deed is done. Yeah?

[rlparker]

While I agree with many of the reasons some have listed here for not liking the gravatar approach, the main objection I have to using a gravatar is that I don’t want the *same* avatar everywhere I post.

There are places where I might like a “real world” picture of myself, others where I prefer like a caricature, and still others where I want none displayed at all – gravatar removes that flexibiity.

I also don’t like the idea that a site can grab a gravatar that it finds for me and place it on their site when I might have preferred on no to be posted. :/

–rlparker

[Samuel Wood (Otto)]

3. Those without gravatars get the default image, yes, but these default images AREN’T the same image! Each default image requires a separate HTTP connection and an uncached HTTP request.

Just wanted to add that this is not the case anymore. Gravatars that don’t exist now redirect to the default gravatar, which is here: https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536

There are places where I might like a “real world” picture of myself, others where I prefer like a caricature, and still others where I want none displayed at all – gravatar removes that flexibiity.

Use different email addresses for each place. Register each one to your gravatar account, and give them different images. Gravatar can handle multiple emails for one account just fine.

[842157]

I’ve gotten one of these gravatars, but i don’t know how to use them. (dont worry, I feel stupid for it). I just left a comment on a blog and I noticed that it’s still the default picture. How do I activate it?

[842157]

HAHA… never mind. it must have been the blog or something. I see my picture wright there. I wonder why it wasn’t working on the wordpress blog i was at.