Bitcoin Forum

Do you consider an Avatar campaign annoying?

What do you think?


Don't care, you will use adblock, will disable the avatar option, goes to 'No' ;)

Where is the middle 'not bothered' option? Also hard to say whether you would find it annoying or not when there isn't really any avatar campaigns yet (or at least not any that will make an impact), but I'm sure those who find signatures annoying will feel the same about this.

I don't have an avatar so, I don't know how it is annoying.

Why would you need one? You can see other's that have them. Would you find them annoying if multiple people have the same avatar (if you can envisage)?

Multiple having same avatars is annoying to me. If enrollee's can put like Marco does, it will be okay.

However, you might have to hire a part time designer for editing enrollee's image. ;)

I have voted yes.


I think (for example) marcotheminer or other sig campaign maintainers will allow to keep our personal avatar but we should add a bit-x "logo" to the right side of it, and this way for me it's ok. I don't think it is annoying (more than the signature) and if someone don't want to see them, he can always use an extension (like ad block) for block specific avatars.

Sure signature haters will keep hating this aswell. ;D. As long as there is an income I dont see any reason why not?

But what about signatures? Many find the same signatures annoying. There are options to turn either or both off. Maybe my suggestion (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1012710.0) about being able to block individual sigs and avatars will get implemented also.

Voted Yes. I personally don't mind having an Avatar campaign but yeah, a person like me who recognizes a member by his/her avatar, it might be tough now as all may have the same Avatar. However, it's much better than the indecent Avatars we already have.

I find / found that Avatars helped identify users without having to read their username against each post. You can see the shape and coloring of the avatar without even looking at it. So everyone running the same one will be annoying.

I agree they're good for identifying people but I wouldn't really find it annoying. For those with the same avatars you would just zone out on them and go back to the old way of identifying users by their names. Maybe being able to ignore certain users's avatars like I suggested would be good for those who are annoyed by them.

If someone greedy enough, Having avatar campaign is a good option since he can make another additional payout.
But the worst case is many will be get annoyed.

Anyone can disable avatar right ?
Well this forum ..gonna not be same again just like early years

Yes you are right but as I said previously there will not be a problem if the "promotional ad" go to the left or right side of the avatar. Everyone will keep his personal avatar and no one will be wrong to identify the user (remember there is always the username).

How is it any different than disabling sigs? If someone disables avatars or sigs it doesn't effect how you see the forum.


Having an additional image advert edited onto the avatar won't be very effective from an advertisers point of view nor do I think it will become popular. I just think marco wanted to keep his current avatar as that's the one he was known by whilst promoting Bit-x. Maybe he will change it in the future though.

Yes, it would be good to see an Avatar Campaign but at the same time it isn't so good to see advertising in every part of this forum  :-\

You already see it in every part of the forum via both ads and signatures.

At the end the ads in this forum is not a bad thing or am I wrong? Because it brings (every day) a lot of visits and new users here and everyone make  (forum + sites) their "profit"; an avatar campaign  may bring a lot of visits (and obviously spam) but if the rate will be fixed I don't think there will be a problem.

I am debating against ;)


Adding a logo to the right will work if the Avatar is square. Otherwise, it will need a lot of tweakings, probably isn't worth the effore. :)

Blocking the Avatar beats the purpose of the campaign. I am sure many will. :)



The income, I think will be much lower than the signature, provided there is no competition. If a big player. like Da Dice, bit-x or PD adopts it, there will be fierce competitions, and many will find it annoying and ultimately block it. Avatar campaigns won't be efficeient anymore.




For me, it is linked to my identity. I won't be wearing a logo as my Avatar, unless the pay is some 0.001BTC per post (at current BTC$ price)  ;D
(I can still block it, can't I? ;))

One important point, as said in my above post, many are voting yes, simply taking into consideration that if found annoying it can be turned off. If a large majority of the active members of the community turns it off or blocks it, avatar campaigns won't be efficient anymore.

The participant can participate in an Avatar campaign at the same time block an Avatar. So, I suppose there is no much use starting an Avatar campaign? (lol, that is what I would do if I find it annoying) ;)

You can say that about signatures. Many already block them but the campaigns do fine. You also wont be able to tell how many users have them blocked or not but I think the vast majority of people will keep them on like they probably do with signatures.

If avatar campaigns will be implemented by any service out there, I think it would be too annoying to see the same avatar over and over again. If campaign managers would accept their logo to be placed beside the original user's avatar, then I think it wouldn't be a problem at all. I personally wouldn't participate to an avatar campaign because I don't want my avatar to be removed (it's kinda cute lol) and at the same time, it's annoying to see that each and every user has the same avatar as yours.

I don't mind...

I just don't feel special bcuz i don't have one...

But Avatar Campaigns are great for the community, people can have a source of income... If i could i "might" join an avatar campaign.

At current rates, you could earn some 30 times the rate from a signature. :)

I don't see any problem with avatar campaigns, personally I think it energises topics, when you're looking at posts

I chose to add Bit-X to the side to keep my known avatar for other members to easily recognise me.

As for if I started an avatar campaign: I'd think of other ways than having every member wear the same avatar. That would be plain annoying, boring and people would get confused. Currently, the best option is something like mine.

Well that certainly would be more preferable and would probably be the best solution. Can't see many other campaigns doing it but maybe its the best way to do it if you have to utilise avatars at all.

It has its limits too.
1. What will someone who already has an image that takes up the full rectangular space?
2. What if the person doesn't know to add it both? I use MS Paint all the time, but I can still do it. ;D
Still it may not be very good looking.
3. It will spoil the real avatar lol.
4. Payouts will be low. So it won't be worth it. ;)
All the trouble of editing it, everytime someone changes campaign, leaves from campaign, .... And the avatar isin't updated instantly too..

http://i.gyazo.com/6fcb28b03e3b7363b858aa3fdda4f0a9.png

This might solve the problems on seeing the same avatar on threads. It may also be a means of recognizing who the user is by just looking at the avatar that is retained and is beside an avatar that might be a logo or something. Given that the px size for an avatar is too small, I suggest that the campaign managers should determine first the size of the avatar they want to use, or how large they would like the avatar to appear.

Unless it's bad, avatar campaigns wouldn't hurt the forum, so... Why not?

Yeah. why not?  ;D

Well the thing about signatures is that they very often contain very useful information so it is unlikely that many people will disable signatures outright. It is more likely that people will come up with things like grue's ad block (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1003570.0;all) that blocks only certain signatures they do not want to see.

Avatars don't really have any use other then to identify certain people. If people started selling their avatar space then people would likely start to disable them which defeats the point of having an avatar campaign in the first place.

Also the price for avatars is likely to be low because they are not clickable so all it can really do is build brand recognition.

I don't think there's that much difference between signatures and avatars to be honest and you can make most arguments against avatars for signatures too. As I've mentioned before billboards or TV adverts aren't clickable either but they have a purpose. An avatar can be like a tiny billboard or advert and you could also utilise the Personal Text and weblink beneath for extra effectiveness it if you wish.

Well my point is that people are unlikely to block signatures because signatures are often very useful. However if too many people have the same advertisement on their avatar then people will start to disable avatars.

It is easy to measure how many people see a billboard or a TV advert as you can measure how many people pass a certain location or view a tv show. It is much more difficult to measure how many people see a certain user''s avatar which makes it difficult to price how much an avatar is worth

There is a huge difference if you would ask me. Signatures often contain useful information and further references for such a service, while on the other hand, avatars contain only an image which is solely used for representing a brand/service. With this links and texts, a user can already know what the service/product is all about, thus making things easier on the user's side. Signatures imo is a better advertisement for a product/service than an avatar.

Avatars can be useful too, but if people are annoyed by signatures or avatars they'll probably just block them anyway.


You can say the same here with the number of hits the forum gets - after all that's why signatures are so valuable here from an advertisers standpoint - but like TV adverts or billboards viewing figures or views are often wildly inaccurate and are estimates and as such don't always translate into sales or people even actually paying attention to them. As with any advertising you're just buying the time and space and hoping it gets you sales or at the very least gets your brand out there.


I'm not doubting it's better but an image can also contain much info and is very valuable imo. As I've said before it's essentially a mini billboard and you can utilise the PT and weblink to direct people to your website as well.

The reason that avatars are useful is because it helps identify people. If people start advertising with their avatar then that benefit goes away.
With signatures you can track how many people click on the link which will give you a general idea as to how many people have seen the signature. Forum impressions will only tell you how many people visit the forum as a whole and will not tell you how many people have seen the avatar of the specific people who are advertising for you.

What happened to the poll ???

I am pretty sure it had some 20 votes or so..  :o

Edit: Did I do something stupid?? Weird.

But they're also useful as an advertising medium. They won't really care about people being more difficult to recognise but that's the compromise. Many wont want to sell their avatar because of this but many also will for the extra coin.


Hits don't necessarily translate into sales or money though so it's also about brand awareness which an avatar will help considerably.

You add a new one and it resetted.

lol. Anyway. Those who had voted, but doesn't show as voted now, please do vote again :)

Sorry for any inconvenience caused. ;)

absolutely yes, more easy money  :D, i'm all in favor for it, and also it should not increase the spam, because it is included in the sig campaign, so 1 post for the sig will count for the avatar too, no one will post more just for the avatar

I voted Yes! I will Love to see a sig campaign, Because From this I can earn some extra amount. I will only join a sig campaign if its worth it to join like .02 or Above BTC. Probably looking from bit-x  ;).

Please lock this topic once you have enough replies (a few more will do) or you will have the entire forum posting here several times with their own (slightly different) opinion.

Weird. Did the submitted votes just reset? I voted earlier and it seems that the number of users who voted decreased. ??? I also suggest that the thread be locked so as to prevent redundant voicing of same ideas and opinions.

Depends if the question is directed towards people who would like to wear an avatar or towards people who would mind looking at an avatar. I honestly don't mind either. As currently I don't have an avatar, having one and being paid for it, wouldn't be any harm.

I just looked at the only avatar campaign on the forum, seems the pay isn't competitive, so I guess it might not be worth for that much trouble.

But that's because sigs can / are meant to hold useful information. Avatars are superfluous to our actual needs.

Yep. The poll was accidentally reset. Sorry. :(
I have no idea what happened tho.

Will lock this thread tomorrow. I had some 20 votes, now just around 10..

Don't care but will not block it.

In my opinion, avatars are useful to recognize some users without looking at their nickname, but if new managers decide to start icon campaigns, they're not going to disturb me. If I'm reading some comments and I see a promotional icon, I'm not going to start crying  :D. Maybe I discover interesting projects thanks to this advertisements.

We'll see what happens. IMO the bit-x proposal it's interesting:
User logo + little announcement of the signature campaign service if required.

We had a suggestion of having a set of 5 different avatars for say 20 participants. But eventually, the idea was not taken. :(

I will not have a paid avatar on my account, but do not mind if others will. People love free coins, which is understandable.

It's a win - win situation. People get free extra coins, and services get extra advertisment exposure.

 :o
It seems to have resetted again.
 ::)

...and users are banned from post and send PM // sarcasm http://nodownloadzoneforum.net/public/style_emoticons/default/Asd.gif.

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ndnhc, have you in plan to start an avatar campaign like marcotheminer or not?

Of course. Might test a small scale version.. But the avatars are the issue. The images will be similar or so.

You can create 10-15 different avatar or just do as marcotheminer (add a little write to the right or left side of the avatar).

Voted for yes, but also there should be "personal message" campaign along with it because of position of it.
Let's say if you're promoting an avatar which is not clear about product than you should write something about it to the below.

For instance that avatar you've showed is too colorful and I didn't pay attention to it much, also didn't try to read.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1022171.msg11063794#msg11063794
If you've written "dadice.com" under it as personal message, I would understand it better.

Agree with him , they should be used  together. Otherwise , its meaningless.

Besides, I think , each campaign use  at least  3 avatars so that people just dont get bored.

I feel like some "decorative branding" wouldn't be too bad. For example, there are some nice lucky bit avatars rolling around. Nothing official that all participants must have, but it has some nice stylish branding that isn't overly annoying but elegant rather. What would be nice to see is a campaign that involves matching signatures and avatars that are specifically designed hand in hand. What's annoying is a mismatching avatar and signature that represents the same site.

Who wouldn't like to see another advertising campaign other than the ones that have a lot of btc. Campaigns are a great way to get the bitcoin community involved with other community members and see how beneficial bitcoins can be versus fiat currency.  With more and more adoption of btc, the more word of mouth, the better. Bring on the ads!

I'm on the fence about this. On the one side I really like making extra BTCBTC but then on the other side I really like seeing a bunch of cool creative avatars. i think that with more avatar campaigns the community would lose some of the cool avatars that some people have.

I've seen many Internet forums during my time online and I don't think I've ever seen one where users are financially rewarded for changing their avatars to advertisements. For a newbie who is new to the forums, it would probably look quite strange.

That being said, I don't think it's a huge issue. As others have already mentioned, it's likely that avatars would be less useful for quickly identifying and distinguishing different users if avatar campaigns became widespread. However, it's really not that different from forums that have one or more default avatars (which ~70% of the users might not even bother changing).



Unless it was part of the forum rules, there wouldn't be much point in this. You would have avatar campaigns that ask users to change their whole avatar to theirs and other avatar campaigns that do what redsn0w proposes. The benefits for the former type of campaign would be greater so they would pay more than the latter type. Those who want to change their whole avatar to get the most money would be able to do so while those who want to keep their personal avatar and attach a promotional ad on the side would be able to do so as well. And really, that's not all that different from how the current system works.

Well this forum certainly is unique in being able to earn money from it with signatures etc. To newbies it will just look like any other forum until they realize you can monetize your personal spaces. When I first came here I had no idea all the people who had PrimeDice signatures we're getting paid for them until I stumbled upon their thread in Services. Found it hard to believe you could get paid so much for such a little thing as a signature but here we are.

Avatar itself nothing bad at all, even very good if we use it in a positive way for the purpose of an impression to others, to the customers. I have also seen a number of avatars to make others feel uncomfortable , annoyed. Anyway, according to my thoughts, a avatar Campaign is OK but do not too abuse it

i voted yes for that Avatar campaign and hope that will be best campaign like the previous one. i am waiting for that upcoming campaign to join that.

I would vote no. Because I am just a newbie (now) and I can't upload an avatar. Also many people having the same avatar is a really bad thing.

I would vote for 'Yes/No' if it exists. Avatar is something personal and should be unique among users. So a paid campaign should buy less than 50% of someone's avatar. That's enough.

I just voted Yes. However the current existing avatar campaign's paying isn't high. I am looking for some higher payouts.

It will not be a problem because everyone will be allowed to keep his own avatar and add to the left/right side the logo of the service, or at least this is the best thing to do in my honest opinion. However you should only to be active and wait to be a full member and after you will be able to put an avatar. If you don't want to wait, buy a full member account from some buyers sellers in the "Digital goods" section.




Also the signature is something personal but someone has invented the sig. campaign and this is the first forum I have seen that allow you to sell the signature place.

Nope. The current (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1021711.0) campaign requires the whole space. See the identical avatars posted there.
BTW, how can someone BUY an account from a BUYER??
What I am looking is not only a higher payout, but also a more personal  advertising avatar.

Sorry, fixed. I meant the dadice and bit-x signature campaign, them could allow you (probable) to keep your avatar and add the site logo to the left or right side.

About that campaign (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1021711.0) it is really insane sell own avatar for 0.016 btc/month.

Insane in term of too cheap or too expensive? for me the rate is pretty cheap for a month, although the avatar does not contain a clickable link, it is worth for few people to milk every penny for their posts

It is too cheap in my honest opinion, an avatar can 'bring' more visit ((also if it is  clickable) respect than a signature, because an avatar appears more than a sig ad (by the way this is only my personal opinion, and a good rate could be 0.10 btc per month).

I'm not really want to see that, Signature campaign already takes most people's signature and that makes the forum kind of monotonous, people's signature are becoming the same, if everyone are wearing the same avatar and sig, then it could be annoying.

You can always disable them view with the internal forum function or using ad block (or similar extension).

I do think the rate is decent, since the picture isnt clickable, but an avatar + signature could be a better campaign since an avatar will actually show a part of the sites, and the link in the signatures is clickable and it is weird to see someone using A sites signature campaign, B sites Personal message campaign and C sites avatar campaign

agreed with you avatar + signature campaign would be more attractive than use 2 different campaign, i think avatar is campaign will be nice option to get more views to any link.

The strange part would be the sheer number of identical avatars. Imagine you stumbled upon another forum's thread and a quarter of the people posting in that thread have the same cat avatar, another quarter with the same dog avatar, another quarter with the same horse avatar, etc. It would look pretty weird to someone who isn't aware of avatar campaigns as they might wonder why everyone is using the same avatars. Some forums have default avatars which are shared across multiple users but these are typically designed to look as generic as possible.

I think that rate is not decent, up to 0.016 btc/ month to rent your avatar space? As I said previously, an avatar is more noticeable than a signature, I think 0.10 btc/per month is a good and right rate.

0.1BTC is a lot solely for an avatar, even more if it's only part of an avatar.

I agree with redsn0w.
Marco, keep in mind that a logo is the first thing that you see when you're reading someone's comment. It's not a signature, it's an image with a service or company logo...

In my opinion it's the most "distinctive" thing that we have in our profile.  :)

just look at the marcotheminer avatar...
he his asking to append the same stipe with bit-x logo

It seems marco buying member avatar:



https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1024258.0