Damn, brooding anime guy is taken !! oohhh I know a unique one, i'll get a cute kitten pic for an avatar !!
If they do get implemented, there should be a rule that if you have a hot chick pic as an avatar, you really must be that hot chick !

Here's another strong "NO" vote for avatars. They're annoying and distracting, so if there's even half a good excuse to keep them off this forum use it. Keep DVDtalk avatar-free.

But, if we get Avatars, and Brooding Anime Guy is taken, I'm using that Penny Arcade cartoon about the TV show "Lost."

Take your pick from this thread.
http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=386847

I like avatars, as metioned above, they allow you easily find your previous post. I was kind of disappointed as well when they werent a new feature.

I do understand the variety of bandwith issues associated with avatars, however I know that FW allows you select avatars from an avatar bank.... this prevents people from having a variety of personal pictures/animated gifs/etc that may have to screened/censored... the avatar bank also provides standardization so they are the same size/resolution/etc

I think avatars can also proived a sense of "community" when scrolling through the posts..

I don't like avatars. Two reasons: first, they clutter the page, and second, at 56k I want as high an information to fluff ratio as I can get.

However, if we're calling dibs, I want the animated torso shot of a sexy woman.

I don't like avatars either, put me down as a NO. Now if there were a way to disable inline images for a certain poster, this forum would clutter free...

Vote NO on Avatars. Blech.

I vote no on avatars.

I vote no also. They are amusing for a few minutes and annoying for an eternity. They cause more work for the mods having to deal with idiots using porn. The number one issue though is they are not work safe. If your boss walks behind you and sees a bunch of little cartoon characters and such, he knows you're goofing off. Normally he wouldn't notice as long as you aren't reading an Edit King thread.

I second, or third or eleventh the no avitars. I find them highly annoying when trying to read posts.

As long as there is an option to turn them OFF, it doesn't bother me. (I don't like them, sigs are unique enough)

It would make the already giant posts bigger

I personally vote No for avatars. Closely tied is 'I don't care, but let me turn them off.'
I really don't see the point of them. You have a username, you have a customizable Location, you have a customizable .sig, and you have plenty of posts to create your online presence/persona.
And even though I'm on broadband, I usually don't like the fancy flashy/animated ones--connection speed is only one part of the issue, local processor power is another. I've been to forums where one person dominated a thread, so I had to wait for his 300x400 or whatever animated obnoxious avatar loaded the 14 times for each of his posts. Immediately after that I turned them off.
I don't mind an avatar/picture in your Profile, that would be seen when someone actively looks at it.
Avatars don't add anything new, they are often repetitive, unfunny, or irrelevant, and can make the site look less 'unprofessional.'
And if there's an avatar bank, I can see some reasons that is better than allowing people to have their own, but still, how many can there be? How many users are there? Even if not everyone gets an avatar, you're going to have a lot of repetition, and that defeats the purpose.

Might there be a way to have 'your' name in a different color than 'everyone else's'? Then you could just scan down the list and look for the Purple instead of Blue, and everything that's Blue is not you [or something].

Geoff Has An Avatar!!!!!!

X has one too!

If there were avatars, there would still be a option to turn them on/off... so that should alleviate much of the concern... as many people have stated.

Many forums also have a bank of avatars already provided with NO ability to upload your own... so that would make the moderation of avatars a non-issue as well.

I'm in favor of allowing avatars. Since those that don't like them can just turn them off I don't see how it is much of a debate, resource issues aside.

I'd vote 'no'.

I'm less concerned since there's an option to turn them off -- which I would do immediately -- but I'm also concerned about bandwidth/performance. Even a slight degradation in speed on the site isn't worth it.

I called the 2 hour animated GIF of 227 episodes as my avatar!

I hate avatars. They're too distracting.

Damn it, X... now I'm hungry... grrrrr

the anti-geoff avatar?

So I've seen a picture of a nasty looking cheeseburger and Jared from Subway. Are avatars enabled now?

naww.. jared is just testing them out with the mods and reviewers first
if its going to end up being a premium perk.. i sure hope its not introduced free first
because that will be one big way to annoy people... introduce features, and then take them back

Don't forget to look at mine! Look at it everyday.

Hmm...