In comment sections or in community pages, it’s mostly an ocean of default avatars.

As a UI developer, that’s always been a gripe because I put a lot of effort into making them look good and scale properly, etc. When I see 60-70% or more accounts sporting the default avatar, it makes me wonder why I even bother.

So, since this bugs me so much, figured I’d just ask.

Lemm.ee users I can understand because of the waiting period for uploads, but AFAIK, most instances don’t have that restriction. Even then, there are plenty of .ee accounts that never bother to go back and set one.

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    As a UI developer, that’s always been a gripe because I put a lot of effort into making them look good and scale properly, etc. When I see 60-70% or more accounts sporting the default avatar, it makes me wonder why I even bother.

    You could just do those autogenerated things instead of a static image if they haven’t set one. Like, hash their username and use the bits of the hash as an input to some function that procedurally-generates an image. Makes it easy to visually-identify users without needing them to go out and manually create an avatar.

    I don’t really care much about the visual appearance myself, but I did want something unique to make it easier to visually-identify my posts for other users. Humans can identify color in their visual field in constant time, so having different colors for different users is helpful. I plonked “wave swirl”—the first thing that came to mind—or something like that into Stable Diffusion 1.5, got a picture of a wave, haven’t touched it since.

    EDIT: For a good example, I always easily identify @[email protected] comments, as he’s got custom colored Unicode in a display name and a custom avatar and custom background. I don’t care enough to go do that myself, but it does highlight the fact that it can be useful for rapidly-identifying people in a conversation.

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOPEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      I’m just gonna reply to your edit separately lol

      I’ll add that I don’t personally really like the display name functionality, because I need to refer to people in text using “@” syntax

      Haven’t used Lemmy-UI in forever, but the user search does work on display names, though the one you mentioned with the custom Unicode characters definitely wouldn’t (well, not typing the letters they represent anyway).

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOPEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      You could just do those autogenerated things instead of a static image if they haven’t set one.

      Yeah, it already does that. I’m using the Dicebear adventurer pack for users and the initials pack for communities. Each user gets the same pseudo-random one generated every time.

      I’m the opposite of another commenter (the one who said they find profiles with avatars sus). I find the ones who don’t bother to set anything a bit sus myself. Like, it’s as if they don’t care to be here, they don’t plan on sticking around, just here to hit it and quit it, etc. Taking the effort to put something there at least shows they’re trying to be part of something (well, in addition to other factors).

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Why the fuck would I ever want to do that? I don’t even want people I know knowing who I am.

      Keep my name out ya goddamn mouth — Will Smith probably

  • Casanunda@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I don’t care about mine or anybody elses avatar, also profiles with avatar usually are: selling something (OF) or company profiles or bot accounts, so any account with an avatar is kinda sus to me.

    • Dr. Bob@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      So I should start an OnlyFans? You could watch me garden, read, and yell at the TV during hockey games. And occasionally fix stuff.

  • Stamets@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Wonder the same thing a lot. I change mine up semi-regularly, same with my profile banner, but that’s just me being bored.

    The thing that drives me insane is when a community doesn’t use the icon. The FUCK ARE YOU DOING.

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOPEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      I’ve had the same one since I started, though I did change it when someone customized it for me - it was too good not to use.

      • Stamets@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        That’s valid lol closest I have is the one I’m using at the moment. I’ve made a couple ones for myself but that’s about it. I’ve had more than enough memes made about me (which is surreal enough as it is), so I’m good lol

  • davidgro@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    Boost only shows them on individual user profile pages, not in threads, so I don’t even know who has one to go look at it.

  • rarbg@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    If I wanted someone’s opinion to matter more based on who they are, I’d use Mastodon.

  • Lazylazycat@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    I can’t see anyone’s avatars and did not know I could set one, but I also wouldn’t if I could as I think they’re always a bit cringe. I prefer the sea of anonymity.

  • Dragonstaff@leminal.spaceEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Can’t be arsed.

    I’m not sure how to, and it’s not something I care about enough to figure out how. I generally think of posting here as more shouting into the void, so I don’t care very much to personalize my account.

    I use Sync. I may be missing out on the perfectly simple UI that was developed to do this.