Tintin Forums

Or does the website not have the capacity? I like how clean everything looks with just text, but personal images would be nice.
Of course that does present the issue of fanart, and might also permit unwanted content to filter in.
I don't know. What is the policy on this?

I've kind of wondered why there are no avatars myself, Ivan. I've decided that it's probably because people would be tempted to scan images from Tintin books for them, which is not a good idea copyrightwise. Something else that I've wished that we had here are signatures, where it will put a little quote or comment that you have specified at the end of each post you make.

Personally (and I am speaking personally here, not for the mods) I don’t get avatars on forums.

It’s one thing to have a picture that shows other people what you actually look like, that I can sort of understand; but mostly it seems to be that if you are on a John Wayne fan site, say, all the members have pictures of John Wayne, or a horse, or a six-gun. These say nothing about you, and - presumably - if you are a member of such a site, you know what The Duke looks like, or a horse or revolver.

Mainly they seem to clutter things up, take up band-width as you wait for the blinking things to down-load, and generally add dead weight. I like sites that are lean and clean, and avatars work against it.

The same thing for sigs: okay, you get a laugh at a quote every now and again, but they soon grow stale and old, and repetition grates, as anyone listening to commercial radio would be aware. What are they for?

No, I prefer things as they are, and feel it adds to the general classiness of the site (and that is over and above the obvious problems of fan art and copyright which you address).

That's one of the reasons I really like this site. It is clean and orderly and not cluttered. One website I used to frequent allowed one to put a large, rather obnoxious banner in their signatures. That cluttered things up like you wouldn't believe. Even if the response was only a few words long, it still took up so much space it was such an eyesore.

But when I come on here, everything is neat, organized and there aren't any stupid quotes.

As a matter of curiosity though, would it be going against Moulinsart's copyright wishes to include a Tintin quote in a signature, if we had them?

I make amends on one point: avatars and signatures would not be a large improvement for anyone except the individual. It would add emphasis to the user and thus detract from the discussion. Sort of like internet body language; ideas might be assimilated more readily with the speaker in mind instead of at face value. And, having thought about it, that would be a degeneration.
No, avatars are not a good idea. But I'm still curious: is there a set policy concerning them, or simply the tact of the moderators?

As the site doesn’t have them, there isn’t a need for a policy, is there? ;-)

*brainfart*
yeah, I guess that's logical!