Ask Lemmy

It is irrelevant.

I do not see the importance of an avatar.

As a UI developer, that’s always been a gripe because I put a lot of effort into making them look good and scale properly, etc. When I see 60-70% or more accounts sporting the default avatar, it makes me wonder why I even bother.

You could just do those autogenerated things instead of a static image if they haven't set one. Like, hash their username and use the bits of the hash as an input to some function that procedurally-generates an image. Makes it easy to visually-identify users without needing them to go out and manually create an avatar.

I don't really care much about the visual appearance myself, but I did want something unique to make it easier to visually-identify my posts for other users. Humans can identify color in their visual field in constant time, so having different colors for different users is helpful. I plonked "wave swirl"---the first thing that came to mind---or something like that into Stable Diffusion 1.5, got a picture of a wave, haven't touched it since.

EDIT: For a good example, I always easily identify @Kolanaki@yiffit.net comments, as he's got custom colored Unicode in a display name and a custom avatar and custom background. I don't care enough to go do that myself, but it does highlight the fact that it can be useful for rapidly-identifying people in a conversation.

For those who can't see avatars, he looks like this in the Lemmy Web UI:

I'll add that I don't personally really like the display name functionality, because I need to refer to people in text using "@" syntax---as I did above---by their real username and it makes it slightly more obnoxious to get that, but I do have to say that it does help make users visually unique.

I think that my ideal for user identification would be maybe some sort of procedurally-generated flag as the default. Those are designed to be readily-identifiable at a distance already. Like, use the hash bits to choose one of several different groups of flags (triband, etc) and bits to choose the color of various elements in the flag. If one flag isn't enough to consume all the bits in the hash, maybe do two side-by-side, etc.

EDIT2: Hmm. Now I kind of wonder if that should be done client-side, because it could let the viewing user theme what they're seeing. Like, dark-mode people don't have to have bright flags, if someone wants a specific theme they could use that (a string of different colored cats in different poses), etc.

EDIT3: And I loathe the fact that the Lemmy Web UI by default permits animated avatars. I think I disabled animations somewhere in Firefox specifically because of the people on here using animated avatars. I think that not putting the kibosh on that was a huge mistake.

Because I dont care.

Because a lot of people don't see a benefit in being recognized when pseudonymously interacting with strangers. And in some apps they aren't displayed at all.

I don't even see or care to see avatars. Its just clutter imo.

Can't be arsed.

I'm not sure how to, and it's not something I care about enough to figure out how. I generally think of posting here as more shouting into the void, so I don't care very much to personalize my account.

I use Sync. I may be missing out on the perfectly simple UI that was developed to do this.

Tbh I keep meaning to add one but I'm also a wicked procrastinator

I had no idea Lemmy even had avatars until I read this post. So I went into my profile out of curiosity - even though I already had "Show Avatars" checked, I've never seen a user's avatar on here before. I did upload one for my own profile though for the hell of it.

I don't see them on the third party app i use

I don't even see it on voyager. I don't know why I would want an avatar anyway.

Because it's an anonymous website?

I thought that they were dumb on Reddit and I think they're even dumber here.

I've put in as much effort to my profile as I wanted to. Sounds like a lot of others did the same.

With 21x21 avatars, the question is why even have this functionality in the first place. That size is too small to matter.

Hadn’t really thought about it until you asked. Don’t see why it’s worth the bother.

My app either doesn't show them or it's off by default. I didn't know there were avatars but I'm not interested in them either since I'm reading on my phone and prefer a minimalist view.

I'm lazy.

If I care enough about another user to note them across time and communities, I give them a tag.

In the other direction, I don't expect anyone to recall my username from one thread to another, to build any sense of my broader personhood greater than one interaction provides.

An avatar just seems unnecessary. I'm also on an app that only displays them if I go out of my way to see them.

You guys have avatars?!?

Wonder the same thing a lot. I change mine up semi-regularly, same with my profile banner, but that's just me being bored.

The thing that drives me insane is when a community doesn't use the icon. The FUCK ARE YOU DOING.

Because I hadn't even thought of it.

On Reddit, it changed to something semi-unique and, even though I never changed it, I somehow identified with it.

Accounts come and go, but shitposting is forever.

I have everyone else's avatars hidden anyway so wouldn't make much sense to set one for myself. I just don't see the appeal.

There are avatars?

My app do display them, but I hadn't paid attention to it.

I gots one, they're just fun

I have avatars disabled

Because having a pfp is gay

Why would you add one? Who even sees it? This reddit/lemmy style of posting and commenting has always worked with just a username and a comment and I like it that way. If my app started showing them I'd either turn them off or find a new app.

I have one, but use Voyager so I cannot actually ever see it (nor my changed username)

Not that I care too much, y'all can enjoy how good it looks while you're here but I get to see it everywhere :3