There's an ongoing debate on a message board that I belong to over the possible addition of avatars. It's a general interest message board that prides itself on its intellectual discussion, and many members have very limited exposure to other message boards, even though it has a fair deal of immature off-topic discussion. The board is one of the very few (that I know of) vBulletin-based sites where users do not have the option of adding an avatar to their user profile. The majority of people participating in the most recent avatar debate are vehemently opposed to avatars, mainly for the following reasons:
1) It will attract an undesirable element to the board; mainly teenagers and other immature folks who are more attracted to bright, shiny objects than the character of the community and the quality of discussion.
2) Members will be inspired to post more outrageous and shocking avatars, such as images depicting Hitler, swastikas, turds, aborted fetuses, and so on.
3) Avatars will turn otherwise intelligent forum participants into drooling idiots, inspiring them to post one-line followups in textspeak instead of the mostly well-crafted prose that is now the norm ... well, at least half of the time.
4) Avatars, even if they aren't animated, are horribly distracting, like bugs identifying the network that sit at the corner of the screen while one watches television.
The "you can turn 'em off" replies of the pro-avatar minority seem to fall onto a deaf ear. Some think that even if they're turned off, just knowing that others can see them will change the character of the board in some indescribable way, almost like how the widespread adoption of color changed the nature of cinematography.
So, do you know of any message board where avatars have been added, and the worst case scenario happened; immature teens were drawn to the site, people started posting avatars of Hitler, discussion devolved into one-line lulz, and so on? On sites where avatars were recently introduced, has the character of the board changed in any way?
1) It will attract an undesirable element to the board; mainly teenagers and other immature folks who are more attracted to bright, shiny objects than the character of the community and the quality of discussion.
2) Members will be inspired to post more outrageous and shocking avatars, such as images depicting Hitler, swastikas, turds, aborted fetuses, and so on.
3) Avatars will turn otherwise intelligent forum participants into drooling idiots, inspiring them to post one-line followups in textspeak instead of the mostly well-crafted prose that is now the norm ... well, at least half of the time.
4) Avatars, even if they aren't animated, are horribly distracting, like bugs identifying the network that sit at the corner of the screen while one watches television.
The "you can turn 'em off" replies of the pro-avatar minority seem to fall onto a deaf ear. Some think that even if they're turned off, just knowing that others can see them will change the character of the board in some indescribable way, almost like how the widespread adoption of color changed the nature of cinematography.
So, do you know of any message board where avatars have been added, and the worst case scenario happened; immature teens were drawn to the site, people started posting avatars of Hitler, discussion devolved into one-line lulz, and so on? On sites where avatars were recently introduced, has the character of the board changed in any way?
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