The Avatar would have to be optional in signature campaigns?

[TheBeardedBaby]

There is a simple solution but it's in the hands of the campaign managers and not the admins. Just add extra payment for those wearing  campaign avatars.
All the admins can do is make a general guidelines how to maintain a signature campaign but enforcing rules and regulations won't have a positive impact.
There's another option.
What I did was to propose a custom avatar with company's logo on it and the idea was quite accepted. Many from the same campaign followed this example and now I don't feel bad for creating a wall of the same avatars while replaying to someone from the same campaign.

[LTU_btc]

I don't think that these things should be regulated. IMO, it should be left for each campaign to decide themselves. If you don't want to lose your unique avatar, you simply don't join signature campaigns. It's normal thing that advertiser set such rules to get biggest visibility.
I remember that 4 or 5 years ago many campaigns didn't required to wear avatar. But for these who wear avatar, they paid extra bonus.
But I agree with some your points. Personally, I so often confuse users from Foxpup's merit cycling club until I don't look at their name.

What I did was to propose a custom avatar with company's logo on it and the idea was quite accepted. Many from the same campaign followed this example and now I don't feel bad for creating a wall of the same avatars while replaying to someone from the same campaign.

I think it's great idea. I really like how BestChange avatars looks now. Every user can have unique avatar, but at the same time they still promote company in their avatar. It would be nice if more campaigns would follow this example.

[Joel_Jantsen]

If several users reply in the same thread with the same campaign on their avatar, then it becomes annoying to be constantly checking who the responding user is

That's exactly the reason why campaigns want you to wear the avatar it does the job of getting them famous around the forum especially if they have hired quality posters in their campaign! Remember all those annoying YouTube ads? You'd never use their product but sure you'd know such a product exists!

Also, no one is forcing you to join a signature campaign. You can't be getting paid for a job and have your own rules while doing it. I don't understand the reasoning of some here.

[nullius]

I am considering the possibility of applying to a signature campaign, I have not done it yet because almost all signature campaigns require changing the avatar for its image
The avatar is a personal image of each user, I believe that the decision to use the avatar field in a campaign should be optional, not mandatory

<—snip—> I only suggest that the user decide freely if they want to <—snip—>

this is nullius being succinct.  “concision breeds precision”, &c.

[Yogee]

...One of the drawbacks I see is when you are reading posts in long threads or in different sections, you have to pay close attention to the answer you are reading and look at the username to know who it is, if this user uses their own avatar you recognize it right away, your brain already has it memorized

What do you think of the cycling fox avatar?

If several users reply in the same thread with the same campaign on their avatar, then it becomes annoying to be constantly checking who the responding user is

How? The avatar placement isn't that far from the username.

Is there any possibility of solving it by the forum administration?

Forum administration also gave you the option to disable user's avatar. Check ✅ that in your profile [Look and Layout Preferences] and you should be good. You may find it easier to see the username that way.

You may want to disable signature if ever you feel annoyed looking at them too.

[FullNode]

Guys, it seems that "some" do not interpret or do not want to interpret my post correctly, first of all I am not trying to ban anything, it is a totally legitimate suggestion, it is not a trick question, we can talk about this kind of topic calmly and as adults , without tearing our clothes
The suggestion is directed to the forum, for this reason the thread was opened in Meta
I am not against signature campaigns or showing advertising in the firm
I know I am free to join a campaign
If there are internal (business) reasons why the forum is not going to intervene, obviously there is nothing to object to

I think that discussing forum topics, even if they aren't everyone's cup of tea, is good for the community
I'd give some more merit,but I'm dry now

[hilariousetc]

There is a simple solution but it's in the hands of the campaign managers and not the admins. Just add extra payment for those wearing  campaign avatars.
All the admins can do is make a general guidelines how to maintain a signature campaign but enforcing rules and regulations won't have a positive impact.
There's another option.
What I did was to propose a custom avatar with company's logo on it and the idea was quite accepted. Many from the same campaign followed this example and now I don't feel bad for creating a wall of the same avatars while replaying to someone from the same campaign.

Some do add extra payment for avatars, but most won't as they won't want to pay more and will probably feel like they're owed the avatar as well. Signature campaigns are in short supply so they can pay what they want and request as much ad space as possible including the avatar and people will still jump at the chance. Even if there was a choice and they do even pay a little extra most will probably still take it and give up their avatar space.

I don't think that these things should be regulated. IMO, it should be left for each campaign to decide themselves. If you don't want to lose your unique avatar, you simply don't join signature campaigns. It's normal thing that advertiser set such rules to get biggest visibility.
I remember that 4 or 5 years ago many campaigns didn't required to wear avatar. But for these who wear avatar, they paid extra bonus.

Could we even have avatars 5 years ago? All users were unable to change them and new users couldn't have them at all back in the day.

If several users reply in the same thread with the same campaign on their avatar, then it becomes annoying to be constantly checking who the responding user is

How? The avatar placement isn't that far from the username.

It can be confusing. Your brain probably sees the image before the name and will automatically associate the image with certain users. I know I've been caught off guard with it both with other users and myself as there's a few people at least with the same avatar and sig combo as mine.

Guys, it seems that "some" do not interpret or do not want to interpret my post correctly, first of all I am not trying to ban anything, it is a totally legitimate suggestion, it is not a trick question, we can talk about this kind of topic calmly and as adults , without tearing our clothes
The suggestion is directed to the forum, for this reason the thread was opened in Meta

Well this is probably semantics. You obviously didn't literally call for a ban but you seemed to ask the forum to step in and regulate whether campaigns can command you to change it, which sounds like a ban on campaigns requesting you change it, which would be a ban on that practice in my opinion. It's a valid request, I just don't think theymos would intervene on the matter and the best practice here is like I and many others have suggested is to only join campaigns that don't demand the change. Chipmixer doesn't require an avatar so keep an eye on their thread for new sign-ups.

[FullNode]

Chipmixer doesn't require an avatar so keep an eye on their thread for new sign-ups.

Being able to join the ChipMixer campaign would be great, I'll stay tuned thanks

[LTU_btc]

I don't think that these things should be regulated. IMO, it should be left for each campaign to decide themselves. If you don't want to lose your unique avatar, you simply don't join signature campaigns. It's normal thing that advertiser set such rules to get biggest visibility.
I remember that 4 or 5 years ago many campaigns didn't required to wear avatar. But for these who wear avatar, they paid extra bonus.

Could we even have avatars 5 years ago? All users were unable to change them and new users couldn't have them at all back in the day.

I think it happened before I joined this forum, probably somewhere in 2015. IIRC, change of avatars was disabled because it was somehow related with hack of Bitcointalk.

[Csmiami]

----

This is the thread you are looking for:  About the recent server compromise I think I slipped, I can't now find the actual cause of the hack as an avatar related thing?

Edit 2: Found it! The avatar related incident happened in 7 years ago (2013). The 2015 hack ended up with avatars being disabled but re-enabled in April 2015

Update: It's unfortunately worse than I thought. There's a good chance that the attacker(s) could have executed arbitrary PHP code and therefore could have accessed the database, but I'm not sure yet how difficult this would be. I'm sending out a mass mailing to all Forum users about this.

Summary: The forum will be down for a while. Backups exist and are held by several people. At this time I feel that password hashes were probably not compromised, but I can't say for sure. If you used the same password on bitcointalk.org as on other sites, you may want to change your passwords. Passwords are hashed using sha256crypt with 7500 rounds (very strong). The JavaScript that was injected into bitcointalk.org seems harmless.

Here's what I know: The attacker injected some code into $modSettings['news'] (the news at the top of pages). Updating news is normally logged, but this action was not logged, so the update was probably done in some roundabout way, not by compromising an admin account or otherwise "legitimately" making the change. Probably, part of SMF related to news-updating or modSettings is flawed. Possibly, the attacker was somehow able to modify the modSettings cache in /tmp or the database directly.

Also, the attacker was able to upload a PHP script and some other files to the avatars directory.

Figuring out the specifics is probably beyond my skills, so 50 BTC to the first person who tells me how this was done. (You have to convince me that your flaw was the one actually used.) The forum won't go back up until I know how this was done, so it could be down for a while.

Surprised I found the reddit thread before the bitcointalk one....


I did happen to have a list of the campaigns not requiring avatars in both spanish and german threads updated to last weeks Overview of Bitcointalk Signature-Ad Campaigns so I'll post it in case anyone was curious enough. I do now have the doubt as to whether this are only the ones fitting that requirement while allowing local board posting; will have to check that, but list goes as follows:

NO avatar:
-Bustadice
-ChipMixer
-YOLOdice

With a bonus:
-Crypto Games (40$/mes)

Other:
-Best Change (seen some customized ones)

[Mpamaegbu]

I'm still confused with my own posts sometimes

Lol... Especially when you have users like o_e_l_e_o, suchmoon and The Pharmacist (who have the same avatar as yours) posting almost immediately after you did. Well, I do check closely to know who among you I am reading from.

I think OP should find their way to the Chipmixer campaign where users aren't required to use the avatar. BTW, I have yet to see what the avatar does for any campaign as they don't even contain any link to project's/company's site.

[hilariousetc]

I don't think that these things should be regulated. IMO, it should be left for each campaign to decide themselves. If you don't want to lose your unique avatar, you simply don't join signature campaigns. It's normal thing that advertiser set such rules to get biggest visibility.
I remember that 4 or 5 years ago many campaigns didn't required to wear avatar. But for these who wear avatar, they paid extra bonus.

Could we even have avatars 5 years ago? All users were unable to change them and new users couldn't have them at all back in the day.

I think it happened before I joined this forum, probably somewhere in 2015. IIRC, change of avatars was disabled because it was somehow related with hack of Bitcointalk.

It seems they were re-enabled on April the 1st 2015: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1008863.0

I now remember they came along with the April Fools Day prank that year. I wonder how long it was before people started monetising them? 

I'm still confused with my own posts sometimes

Lol... Especially when you have users like o_e_l_e_o, suchmoon and The Pharmacist (who have the same avatar as yours) posting almost immediately after you did. Well, I do check closely to know who among you I am reading from.

I think OP should find their way to the Chipmixer campaign where users aren't required to use the avatar. BTW, I have yet to see what the avatar does for any campaign as they don't even contain any link to project's/company's site.

Neither does a billboard at the side of the road or on a TV advertisement, but they get the message/product out there and it's still very good brand awareness and I've always said that signatures and avatars here are just like digital billboards. Avatars might not be clickable but signatures are and they're usually for the same product so they go hand in hand, especially when it's the avatar that might first grab your attention. You could always use the Personal Text to direct users to click on the signature as well, if it'll fit, but most use that to link to the site or state a current offer or something.

[Little Mouse]

Projects are paying for the signature campaign and they are likely to get out the most from the campaign. I don't think forum administration will interfere in this issue. If all the users get united (which will be impossible), I think this can be done.
In your case, there are a few campaign which don't force the user to wear avatar. You can participate in those campaigns.

[SiNeReiNZzz]

As far as I know there is no avatar obligation for  1-2 campaigns in the forum, but for the majority of it for sure! Especially with Hhampuz campaigns.
BUT (look at my avatar for example) you can of course talk to the manager. I have done that as well.
And as you can see, it seems to work! But probably not every campaign. If the operators would like to exploit every millimeter of advertising space...

But I think individual design is better, than if all participants look the same.

But since every campaign has a different operator behind it, it is simply not predictable.
So if you want to take part in a campaign then there is nothing wrong with it, I think!
As long as it is a trustworthy project/company, I don't see any problem to earn some pocket money, if you are active in the forum anyway, and good poster = good advertisers!

It only becomes unpleasant, if it is approached from the other side, and you only post for your payment of the campaign...
And secondlyBefore applying, simply speak to the respective campaign manager...
I am sure that you will find out what works and what doesn't!

[DdmrDdmr]

I was never into custom avatars myself, until last year’s 10th anniversary, and I’ve come to see it more as a sign of identity than a billboard. Seeing conversations stream by an array of uniformed avatars is not my piece of cake, although from a commercial point of view, it’s more space to advertise on for the same price, which is totally understandable.

Ideally, I’d go for (in this order):

a) Having the avatar free from campaign requirements (not going to happen, especially when the precedent has been on for ages).

b) Having campaigns self-decide to make corporate avatar optional. The costless approach would be to split the signature pay-out between avatar and signature (30/70 for example), so that one could decide to earn less from his campaign in favour of his own avatar (wonder how many people would opt-out of wearing a corporate avatar then…).

c) Have it @TheBeardedBaby’s way. This is likely not easy to extend, but it’s a nice compromise between wearing a custom avatar and wearing a corporate one. It won’t always work nicely though… Perhaps it being a possibility for certain ranks ony would delimit the scope of validation on the manager’s behalf.

d) Leave it as is (which is what it will likely be, unless more campaign managers consider flexing the requirement).

[AB de Royse777]

There is a simple solution but it's in the hands of the campaign managers and not the admins. Just add extra payment for those wearing  campaign avatars.

Or do not join a campaign that requires the avatar to be occupied.

It's a choice one makes. If one have a custom avatar and if they want it to have it all the time like Jet Cash - believing that this is giving them an identity then join a campaign like Chipmixer (good luck by the way :-P ) or similar campaign who only ask to rent the signature space.

All the admins can do is make a general guidelines how to maintain a signature campaign but enforcing rules and regulations won't have a positive impact.

The forum is all about enjoying one's freedom and I do not think admin/s will ever bother about something which in fact is something they sometimes consider removing for good.

[shield132]

Avatar is - personal image
Text under avatar is - personal text
Signature is - personal space

Home, Car, these are personal things but when you rent them, it means that a new person has the right to use it. So, when you want to apply in sig campaign, they have the right to request to get your sig, avatar and personal text place. They ask you for this, no one pushes you to rent any space that belongs to you.

Btw I want to tell you one great fact about avatar and signature space. When I see posts that are written by our members who wear sportsbet avatar and chipmixer space, my brain has memorized and automatically understands that these should be high-quality posters and their posts deserve more attention from me. So, it has some cons for me...

[decodx]

Or do not join a campaign that requires the avatar to be occupied.

It's not too much of an option, is it?

The forum is all about enjoying one's freedom and I do not think admin/s will ever bother about something which in fact is something they sometimes consider removing for good.

Judging by Coinbistro.com (Epochtalk testing ground) I don't think they're considering it anymore.

[jademaxsuy]

Signature and avatar are a way to advertise the project. Most likely people do not care on their avatar and are not personalize. Bounty managers and project owners take advantage on this by letting a mandatory to wear avatar to be able to be qualified and receive pay. Of course if you are in need to earn for the rewards then you need to comply the requirements set by the project owner. Since there are many bounty hunters so you will have no choice but to agree with them and get accepted among the applicants wishes to join the project.

[nullius]

Or do not join a campaign that requires the avatar to be occupied.

It's not too much of an option, is it?

As someone whose unpaid avatar has been bowdlerized⁰ due to its explicit implications, I am deeply offended by your blatantly microaggressive prejudice against people who do not sell out their avatars for money.¹

Hateful words can hurt!  With your toxic exclusionary attitude, it is as if you would erase us from existence!  😭

0. If my unexpurgated avatar still shows in your browser due to caching, please cover your eyes so that I do not get in trouble.  Thanks.

1. The offer that I briefly put in my personal text still stands:  I am willing to rent out my avatar for not less than 20999999.9769 BTC/year.