What do the avatars in the topic list mean?


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Bug: Cannot determine OP or Last Poster from home screen
    Expectation: A thread should state, not perhaps in this wording, "Thread title - started by Username on yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm". So I can see at a glance who started what and when. The same should be for the last poster. "Last reply by Username on yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm". Again, like forums are supposed to behave. Instead, there's a random assortment of avatars that are either broken images or too small to make out, in a random order with no rhyme or reason as to what those icons are. There is no textual information. There is no way of knowing when the things was posted except for the users "x hours ago".
    Solution: Put this information on the thread page.



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    Instead, there's a random assortment of avatars that are either broken images or too small to make out, in a random order with no rhyme or reason as to what those icons are. There is no textual information.

    Hover over them (unless you're on a mobile device for which hover is not a thing, sorry). Tooltips: Leftmost avatar/broken image: OP. 2nd avatar: most frequent contributor. Other avatars: other frequent contributors. Avatar with blue border: most recent poster.



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    Cannot determine OP or Last Poster from home screen
    It's there, but you have to mouse-over the avatars (yeah not great for usability, but the info is at least there). Which is useful iff:

    1. Nobody ever changes avatars
    2. You don't use Ghostery to block Gravatar


  • @rad131304 said:

    You don't use Ghostery to block Gravatar

    The tooltip is there, even if the avatar image isn't. Yeah, mouse-over the blank space; obvious...


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @rad131304 said:

    It's there, but you have to mouse-over the avatars (yeah not great for usability, but the info is at least there). Which is useful iff:
    Nobody ever changes avatars
    You don't use Ghostery to block Grava

    Hey look, Discourse doesn't quote numbered lists! I think someone already filed that on @codinghorror TOIGNORE list (aka our bug reports)

    So yeah

    1. hovering is shit for information disoverability
    2. people change avatars here all the fucking time
      2a) Even if they didn't, it's a 16x16 compressed image. Everyone's avatar looks the same
    3. I do block fucking Gravatar. And firefox by default shows no placeholder image, because Firefox is the shit (in the bad way). So there's nothing to hover over

    @HardwareGeek said:

    Hover over them (unless you're on a mobile device for which hover is not a thing, sorry). Tooltips: Leftmost avatar/broken image: OP. 2nd avatar: most frequent contributor. Other avatars: other frequent contributors. Avatar with blue border: most recent poster.

    So all I have to do is memorize three positional and one color dependent visual cues, instead of having text information to read. USABILITY. As long as I remember what each of the random assortment of tiles means, and hope that no one trolls the forum by making their avatar image blue bordered, and as long as the order never changes (which I'll never know because there's no text clues), and as long as I take time to stop and hover over every image, and as long as the images are never broken or 404'd, it'll work some of the time.

    Fucking hell.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    To illustrate my point, here's a screenshot. I didn't include the header that has the "OP, most freq, latest" because there isn't one:

    (let's see if Discourse can onebox imgur)

    Okay, folks, thread one, who is the OP? Who are the #1 and #3 most frequent contributors?

    How many unique users with grey avatars posted in threads #2, #3?

    Is Morbs' avatar blue bordered, or is that a special recognition? You can cheat by looking at thread #4... unless you have a monitor where it is literally impossible to distinguish between Very Light Blue and white, in which case the only reason I see the blue border at all is because the image is on my second monitor with better contrast.

    Why does thread #6 have fewer avatars than the others? Is it because only four people have posted in it instead of the five from the other threads? If so, does that mean this is a list of the most recent posters? If so, in what order are they presented? Why is it inconstant?

    Finally: Why does this look like someone's Myspace guestbook/friends list instead of a forum from 2014?



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    2a) Even if they didn't, it's a 16x16 compressed image. Everyone's avatar looks the same

    Does everyone here except me have terrible vision? I can instantly tell whose avatar is whose.

    @Lorne_Kates said:

    So all I have to do is memorize three positional and one color dependent visual cues, instead of having text information to read. USABILITY. As long as I remember what each of the random assortment of tiles means, and hope that no one trolls the forum by making their avatar image blue bordered, and as long as the order never changes (which I'll never know because there's no text clues), and as long as I take time to stop and hover over every image, and as long as the images are never broken or 404'd, it'll work some of the time.

    Dude, you get used to it. I'll admit, it's not instantly intuitive, but after a couple of hours I got how the icons on the threads list worked--first icon OP, blue-highlighted icon is last post.



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    Okay, folks, thread one, who is the OP? Who are the #1 and #3 most frequent contributors?

    To be fair, you are 1) blocking Gravatar; and 2) they are working right now to ditch Gravatar and make all avatars local.

    @Lorne_Kates said:

    How many unique users with grey avatars posted in threads #2, #3?

    Row 2, Avatar 3 is @error (AKA joe.edwards), as is Row 3, Avatar 1

    Row 3, Avatar 3 is @mott555



  • To be fair, my avatar really doesn't work well on Discourse. It's hardly identifiable as an Excel cell drawing.


    Filed under: Feature request: Larger avatar support, Backup feature request: Full-featured spreadsheet software plugin for avatars



  • @mott555 said:

    To be fair, my avatar really doesn't work well on Discourse. It's hardly identifiable as an Excel cell drawing.


    Filed under: Feature request: Larger avatar support, Backup feature request: Full-featured spreadsheet software plugin for avatars

    It supports larger avatars (go to your profile or click your username in this thread). You just uploaded a low-rez version.



  • I uploaded a copy that I downloaded off the CS site, but I'll take a look.

    Also, clicking my username in this thread just reloads this thread. Most useless hyperlink ever.



  • @mott555 said:

    I uploaded a copy that I downloaded off the CS site, but I'll take a look.

    Discourse supports higher rez images, so the one from CS looks pixelated when blown up.

    @mott555 said:

    Also, clicking my username in this thread just reloads this thread. Most useless hyperlink ever.

    Huh.. for me it opens a pop-over showing some basic stats about you and some links, like to your profile page. It also shows the larger avatar, which looks kind of janky. You can see it on your profile page:

    http://what.thedailywtf.com/users/mott555/activity


  • 🚽 Regular

    @rad131304 said:

    It's there, but you have to mouse-over the avatars (yeah not great for usability, but the info is at least there). Which is useful iff:

    1. Nobody ever changes avatars
    2. You don't use Ghostery to block Gravatar
    You forgot the obvious:
    • You have a mouse (or at least some sort of pointer).

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