amuck-landowner

In case you're wondering where your avatar went...

MannDude

Just a dude
vpsBoard Founder
Moderator
...I've disabled Gravatars as per the request of some of the more security/privacy focused/paranoid members here :)

You can still upload your avatar as you normally would.
 

GIANT_CRAB

New Member
This is terribad.

I'm just going to make up a new conspiracy: VPSBoard forces all members to upload their real life picture and sell off their data.

Its legal to do that because Facebook and Google is already doing it.
 

Francisco

Company Lube
Verified Provider
This is terribad.

I'm just going to make up a new conspiracy: VPSBoard forces all members to upload their real life picture and sell off their data.

Its legal to do that because Facebook and Google is already doing it.
It's only legal if you have a get out of jail free card doctors note.
 

MannDude

Just a dude
vpsBoard Founder
Moderator
Hahaha!

Site is working better/faster now.  Die GRAVATAR, DIE!
That may be the nginx (switched from Lighttpd)... may not be.

It does look quite plain though. I wish I had scraped all the gravatars and referenced them locally somehow as suggested above. Just unsure how I'd have gone about doing that without potentially fudging up or it taking too much time.

default_large.png


If you're using the new theme, that's the default photo for no-avatars. Figure that would encourage those to upload their own.
 
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joepie91

New Member
Perhaps a better option is to use Gravatar, but turn off the generated defaults. It should be possible to set a single fixed "default" image for people without an avatar.

I should also point out that if you're "privacy-minded", you should probably not be registering here with your normal e-mail address in the first place.
 

willie

Active Member
Perhaps a better option is to use Gravatar, but turn off the generated defaults. It should be possible to set a single fixed "default" image for people without an avatar.

I should also point out that if you're "privacy-minded", you should probably not be registering here with your normal e-mail address in the first place.
It has nothing to do with email: the privacy concern of Gravatar is the way the browser sends your ip addresses and referer url to the Gravatar server anytime you load any page that contains ANY gravatars.  It's just like google analytics beacons, facebook "like" buttons, etc.  As one of those "privacy-minded" users you mention, I've had gravatar.com blocked from my browser for ages, because of this issue, so I'm not reall affected by how vpsboard deals with this, though.
 
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AuroraZero

Active Member
Turd Sammiches!!!! Now I have to make a new avatar for here. Guess it is okay though needed to fire up the old image makers and do some work anyways. Just gives me a better excuse if the snow and cold did not do it before. :)
 

joepie91

New Member
It has nothing to do with email: the privacy concern of Gravatar is the way the browser sends your ip addresses and referer url to the Gravatar server anytime you load any page that contains ANY gravatars.  It's just like google analytics beacons, facebook "like" buttons, etc.  As one of those "privacy-minded" users you mention, I've had gravatar.com blocked from my browser for ages, because of this issue, so I'm not reall affected by how vpsboard deals with this, though.
This is no different for any random embedded image (by a user, in a forum post or even signature if you can embed images there!), or an analytics script, or any of the other gazillion external services that are used everywhere around the web and that you can block out by using extensions such as DoNotTrackMe, Ghostery, Disconnect, etc. I really don't see the point of removing Gravatar for that reason. 
 

D. Strout

Resident IPv6 Proponent
For those of you who have your avatars restored, how did you do it? The max image file size is 50KB - you can't put anything in that! The upload area says it recommends an image with a minimum of 200px square, which is straining the bounds of what you can get in to 50kb. Could this be raised to 100KB please?
 

MannDude

Just a dude
vpsBoard Founder
Moderator
This is no different for any random embedded image (by a user, in a forum post or even signature if you can embed images there!), or an analytics script, or any of the other gazillion external services that are used everywhere around the web and that you can block out by using extensions such as DoNotTrackMe, Ghostery, Disconnect, etc. I really don't see the point of removing Gravatar for that reason. 
To be fair, it didn't bother me personally that much. It's just a sad truth that we live with nowadays, that 3rd parties can track you and that when loading a page on the internet, perhaps more than just the owner of that website may be able to determine you've been there. But in an effort to make this place better for everyone, including those who are concerned by such things I've put forth an increased effort in reducing 3rd party services where they can reasonably be replaced with something in-house.

Google Anayltics --> Self hosted Piwik

Advertisements/BSA/Ad-network ---> Self-hosted, custom ad-serving script compliments of Novacha

Images --> Not heavily used, but self-hosted images can be added to http://imgu.vpsboard.com (need to install an SSL on it, I know. It's on my list)

CSS/JS --> Served in-house, instead of Google.

Gravatars --> Upload an avatar function is a default feature of any modern forum.
 

mikho

Not to be taken seriously, ever!
I login with twitter and thats where my avatar comes from. When will that be blocked?
 

MannDude

Just a dude
vpsBoard Founder
Moderator
I login with twitter and thats where my avatar comes from. When will that be blocked?
I did have that disabled and more people complained about having it disabled than do than having it enabled. Though I can create you a regular account so you don't have to rely on Twitter to login... :)
 
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