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Avatar KB Limit???

joro

joro

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 11, 2009
2,361
41
Virginia
It's getting very frustrating to have to resize avatars or compress them to the point of oblivion because of the restrictions on avatars. I understand the 75x75px limit but why is the file size limit so low? If possible, could we raise it to something decent perhaps 50kb + because I know that increase won't put a substantial load on the server especially given the number of people around here who have avatars.

Thanks for the consideration!
 
^ rude. :cool:

It'd be nice to increase it ever so slightly but with a member base this large maybe it is a load issue.
 
MacDawg already answered, what more do you need?!

I kid I kid!!

It'd be nice to see if this could happen but so far things have been fine. The only c-block on my avatar was one that was probably not ok on this site. :D
 
dejo said:
And you know this how?
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Because I've run numerous vBulletin & SQL-backed forums and increasing the limit doesn't do a whole bunch to bandwidth, especially given the relatively small percentage of users here who have avatars (relative to the entire membership base)
 
joro said:
Because I've run numerous vBulletin & SQL-backed forums and increasing the limit doesn't do a whole bunch to bandwidth, especially given the relatively small percentage of users here who have avatars (relative to the entire membership base)
Click to expand...

I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but did those sites have MR page view numbers? MR is very popular and its page loads are huge (compared to most forum sites), so even a couple KB here and there can add up quickly. It's the same reason Google uses such simplified code in their home page.
 
angelwatt said:
I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but did those sites have MR page view numbers? MR is very popular and its page loads are huge (compared to most forum sites), so even a couple KB here and there can add up quickly. It's the same reason Google uses such simplified code in their home page.
Click to expand...

Even with a large amount of page loads, bandwidth shouldn’t be an issue for a relatively minor increase to maybe around 50 - 60kb. I’ll concede it will increase bandwidth overall; however, if the servers at MacRumors can’t handle such a minor increase it’s probably a good indication they need more horsepower behind the forums (something which may be true given the recent slowness & outages that have been reported in this forum over the past few months).

It’s worth pointing out again that we aren’t talking about adding 25 – 30 kb for 417,000 users. We are talking about a likely small fraction of that which doesn’t add up to nearly as much as you may think. Maybe Dr. Q or someone could confirm the number of users who are avatar eligible and/or using avatars??

joro said:
Maybe Dr. Q or someone could confirm the number of users who are avatar eligible and/or using avatars??
Click to expand...

If you check the memberlist and do an advanced search for users who have over 500 posts (the number required to "qualify" for an avatar), it only comes up to 2,813 members – some of which don’t even have avatars uploaded. So if you take all those members and multiply by 30kb, it comes to 10.3mb which is smaller than many full-sized photos

Plus when you figure that after the initial load these images become cached, the real load on the serve would be negligent after the first few days.
 
joro said:
Because I've run numerous vBulletin & SQL-backed forums and increasing the limit doesn't do a whole bunch to bandwidth, especially given the relatively small percentage of users here who have avatars (relative to the entire membership base)
Click to expand...
I don't think you can extrapolate your personal experience to claim you know how it will affect MacRumors. But I'll leave it to the site owner and admins to provide the best insight. If they respond, you'll have your answer. If they don't, you'll also know (i.e. they probably aren't going to increase it).
 
SilentPanda said:
I'm actually surprised how few members are eligible for avatars compared to the whole. If somebody had asked I probably would've guessed 25%! :eek:
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Just over 2,800 members, or only .78%! If you count only those who have posted in the last year, it's about 2,500, or about 2.2%. That's a tiny percentage of members. Personally, I think the current avatar allowance is fine. I'm glad MR isn't cluttered with outlandish avatars and signatures, that make other forums so difficult to read!
 
GGJstudios said:
I'm glad MR isn't cluttered with outlandish avatars and signatures, that make other forums so difficult to read!
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That's the exact reason I choose to hide avatars and signatures. The page loads faster and wastes my bandwidth, especially on my WWAN device.
 
GGJstudios said:
Just over 2,800 members, or only .78%! If you count only those who have posted in the last year, it's about 2,500, or about 2.2%. That's a tiny percentage of members. Personally, I think the current avatar allowance is fine. I'm glad MR isn't cluttered with outlandish avatars and signatures, that make other forums so difficult to read!
Click to expand...

But the percentage of posts by people with avatars is much higher. If you think about it, that's why they have avatars in the first place.

Myself, I usually block them - especially when I'm at work. There are many that are very distracting - others that I felt were a little lewd. Better just to turn them off altogether.
 
joro said:
Even with a large amount of page loads, bandwidth shouldn’t be an issue for a relatively minor increase to maybe around 50 - 60kb. I’ll concede it will increase bandwidth overall; however, if the servers at MacRumors can’t handle such a minor increase it’s probably a good indication they need more horsepower behind the forums (something which may be true given the recent slowness & outages that have been reported in this forum over the past few months).
Click to expand...

Actually, MR to address several issues
 
SilentPanda said:
I'm actually surprised how few members are eligible for avatars compared to the whole. If somebody had asked I probably would've guessed 25%! :eek:
Click to expand...


Kind of alarming from a business perspective. Why don't people stick around?
 
rdowns said:
Kind of alarming from a business perspective. Why don't people stick around?
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Many join for a specific question and when it is answered, they leave
Others lurk but don't really feel comfortable posting
Some don't feel they have enough expertise to contribute anything that isn't being already said

Some are trolls who grew tired of having their fun

And some posters are so quick to answer everything, others don't get a chance to... (raises hand, guilty)
 
rdowns said:
Kind of alarming from a business perspective. Why don't people stick around?
Click to expand...

484 people with 'tars have posted in the last year. That is not that many considering the size of the forums. Seems we are a dying breed.
 
stridemat said:
484 people with 'tars have posted in the last year. That is not that many considering the size of the forums. Seems we are a dying breed.
Click to expand...

Where do you get that number? Are you counting only those with avatars, or only those qualified for avatars? If I search for all the members with 500 posts or more, whose last post is in the last year, I get a different number:
Picture 2.jpg​
 
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