Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Lacewing]

Scott... (and anyone else who is interested/affected)... I might be the only one who doesn't like animated avatars. I've turned off “Display Flash Animations” in my user control panel / Board Preferences/ Display options, but it doesn't turn them off. What is that control for?

I find the animations very distracting and somewhat annoying... flashing away (often at a high speed)... while I'm trying to thoughtfully read what someone has written. It seems too visually noisy for a website like this. If everyone was doing it, it would be beyond horrible. Some people may be less sensitive (and more immune) to such constant bombardment of visual stimulation. But for the sake of any of us who aren't, I respectfully request that animated avatars not be allowed -- or at least something that people can “disable” for their own display.

I realize I can turn off the display of all avatars completely, but I do appreciate identifying people by their non-animated avatars. Any suggestions or insights? Thanks.

[Sy Borg]

If you are using Firefox, there is an addon called Toggle Animated GIFs.

-- Updated 10 Feb 2015, 00:54 to add the following --

addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ ... ated-gifs/

-- Updated 10 Feb 2015, 00:57 to add the following --

Chrome has an addon called GIF Jam (Animation Stopper) which can be Googled, downloaded and installed. chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gif-j ... balb?hl=en

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

I believe the Display Flash Animations is for disabling embedded flash within topics/posts from playing. This is sort of pointless because due to other current settings flash is not allowed to be posted anyway. The avatars are not flash but GIFs. Unfortunately, I am not sure there is currently a way to disable just gif avatars. Although, I agree it is not really in line with the professional tone of the forum. I will remove support for GIF avatars.

[Lacewing]

Thanks Scott! I hope this doesn't upset anyone.

Greta, thanks for your response too!

[Harbal]

Scott... (and anyone else who is interested/affected)... I might be the only one who doesn't like animated avatars.

You're not the only one. I imagine the culprits are mostly the Americans.