An avatar question

because they dont like you.

It is 100 posts before you can submit an avatar... until then, I think you can select one of THG stock ones...

Don't worry about the people down here, we're an antisocial bunch - most of the time...

As for the avatars, stock forum avatars only until 100 posts. I've seen that policy in place before on two or three other forums, and it actually makes a lot of sense. Allow me to explain...

Avatars come in two flavours - normal and animated. An animated picture is actually a series of pictures, each one very slightly different to the last, and this gives the illusion of motion - hence, animated avatar. Only problem is, is that a normal avatar is ONE 80x80* image, while an animated avatar is a series of 80x80 images. More images = more bandwidth used = higher costs (bandwidth ain't cheap). As it happens, custom avatars will use extra bandwidth in any case, and animated ones more. Slight, but it adds up.

Hypothetical situation - someone joins, posts twice, selects a nice custom animated avatar, posts three more times, and disappears for whatever reason. So now the webmasters have to deal with extra little pictures that consume extra bandwidth. The 100 posts limit is supposed to lessen this issue, apparently.

*80x80 pixels is the largest available size on this forum.

By the way, the above paragraphs aren't the real reason, I just don't know what the real reasons, if any, are.

The limits are 100x100 pixels, most likely there is also a KB limit but I don't know what it is.

All avatars are verified/approved by a forum administrator. Perhaps yours was rejected and replaced by a more acceptable one. I'm not an admin so I don't know, but I don't think the admins are prudes so yours must have been pretty dicey to get rejected. Try a nice hot chick with some clothes on?

I don't know of any specific rules, but I have seen avatars have been rejected, like the guy who wanted swastikas, or the guy who wanted pictures his "hardware" that should have stayed in his pants.

I haven't heard of avatars being changed. This may be a bug.

I suspect the post count is so that people who just show up once, ask "please rate my build!" and then vanish don't take up as much space. The post count thing goes for people who work here as well.

Come to think of it, I should get me an avatar.