You might have noticed some user icons next to some comments today, this is because we enabled Gravatar support. Gravatar acts as a centralized identity pool where blogs, news sites (and recently Revver.com) can use their service and offer a universal icon for each unique email address. As long as you register on Gravatar with the same email address registered on OSAlert, your personalized icon will be shown on OSAlert (and on all other sites that support Gravatar) automatically. This is a testing period for Gravatar here at OSAlert, and there are no guarantees whatsoever that the v4 version of OSAlert will use that icon system or its own. It all depends on the kind of quality, stability and responsiveness we get from Gravatar’s servers. So, upload your own icon at Gravatar.com and test away! Ability to turn off user icons will be built-in on v4.
Gravatar Support on OSAlert
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Thank you for building in an opt-out to this system.
Thank you for building in an opt-out to this system.
You can’t turn the gravatar thing off in v3. You can only turn avatars off in v4 – and the v4 avatars have nothing to do with gravatar (yet – OSN v4 might make use of the gravatar system, or it might not).
Edited 2007-07-03 20:56
Is there any reason for not supporting opt-out? After all, it’s probably easier to do than implementing the Gravatar system.
Not that I hate icons, though.
Yes, there will be a turn off ability on v4 (which will be released sometime soon). Also, I was testing Gravatar on osnews for 2 months now (in the admin version) and on average, there are only about 1 gravatar icons per 100 comments. I don’t expect it to be a big deal although it can be a bit of distraction if not more users don’t get an icon. Hopefully, v4 is coming soon.
Edited 2007-07-03 21:02
Is this only for new comments, or will previous comments display the grav as well?
EDIT: Grav doesn’t show up in nested comments in threaded view on Orange Platinum skin
Edited 2007-07-03 21:17
I have never seen yours actually. Are you sure you have registered at Gravatar with the current email address? I can see other gravatars with any theme and comment view.
Edited 2007-07-03 21:21
Yes, look at my other comments on this thread and you’ll see my grav if it’s a thread starter. I’m a long time user of gravatar.
I can see it now, but I have observed that your icon in particular is not always accessible. This might be a problem with one of Gravatar’s servers.
Be that as it may, I have yet to see it in a nested comment anywhere on OSAlert. Could some sort of caching mechanism on OSAlert be interfering if it’s not showing up when it should be?
Yes, it could be the osnews caching. It seems that when the caching was written down the specific gravatar server that was holding your icon was not responding. Give it 10 minutes or so. I can see your icon now on all views in my admin version that bypasses caching.
Edited 2007-07-03 21:40
In FF 2.0.x there is a brief flicker while a placeholder image is loaded if the user doesn’t have a gravatar, i.e. the ‘default’ image is briefly displayed on the left hand side of the comment, then disappears. Do a hard refresh (Ctrl-F5) on this thread and you’ll see it on Almafeta’s first comment.
There is nothing to be done to fix this “flicker”. This is the 1×1 pix placeholder if the user has no icon.
Also, your icon is down again, there is definitely a problem with your specific icon or server that holds your icon.
On top of that, here on Konqi, the “broken image” logo is displayed on all comments where the avatar don’t work.
And when you look at a permalink, it always shows the broken image icon.
Edited 2007-07-03 21:58
The flicker I’m seeing is much larger than 1×1…if I had to guess I’d say more like 20×20, but it’s very brief so hard to tell (less than a second). The displayed image is the standard broken image. Not a huge deal, but I’m a perfectionist.
It’d also be nice if gravas anchored back to the user’s profile page
I never knew about this gravatar system. Pretty cool looking.
Let’s see if mine shows up…
I see it.
Sweet. I’ve been using gravatar for a while now, it’s always a nice touch when sites build in support for it.
so you send all emails in your database to gravatar?
Basically, this is how it works, yes, because the email address is used as an ID. However, many many sites support gravatar for 2 years now and there was never a privacy issue — which is why we decided to go with it. IF there is a documented case against Gravatar though, we will of course retract support for it.
Their privacy statememt is pretty clear: http://site.gravatar.com/privacy
Edited 2007-07-03 21:26
wouldn’t it be better to compare md5-hashes instead of the actual email-adrress?
It is not the email address that’s transmitted each time in plain text, it is an encrypted hash based on the email address. Check their API and site for more explanation.
Edited 2007-07-03 21:27
osnews + gravatar = Good Thing ™
Thanks guys.
Version 4 Osnews looking good.Easier on the eyes.Gravatars are cool too.
These fancy pictures suck big time! There’s nothing like being distracted from actual content (the comments). Or are we running a photo fair here?
I personally like it. Like with OS’ , choice is good. You can always block gravatar pictures using a hosts file or any ad block application if you don’t like them.
…you probably missed the point, it’s about easily seeing/recognize WHO write that “content”… but I’m in favor of the turn-off option… as it’s already stated that it will be available, well… may Greek and Troy be in peace now?
(semi)off-topic: As we’re talking about bugs here… the quote tag [ q ] and [ /q ] doesn’t show-up properly in the preview… it’s a long standing bug (since quote tag was introduced)
> the quote tag [ q ] and [ /q ] doesn’t show-up properly in the preview
Yes, these were added by Adam long after I had written the preview code. I don’t think they will ever be added there to be honest… just wait for v4.
Edited 2007-07-03 23:02
If there is no avatar available, I believe that the Gravatar server should return a 1×1 empty GIF.. that’s like 27 bytes. Probably cheaper than having the server issue a 404 and the browser doing javascript (onerror) or whatever to fix it..
The server does not return a 404, there is an API to return a custom image, and this is what we do. We return a 1×1 image.
I will look at the permalink.php problem, but Konqueror showing a broken image elsewhere looks like a Konqueror bug.
EDIT: I found what the problem is, but we will have to wait for Adam to come back from vacations to fix it. Regarding Konqueror always showing a broken image instead of a 1×1 gif image, that’s a bug in Konqueror.
Edited 2007-07-03 22:32
Ok, fixed both permalink.php and reply.php.
If Konqueror still has problems, then it’s a bug on their side.
Let’s see if mine shows up…
Edit: doesn’t seem to. Then again, I just opened an account, so it might take a while before the database is refreshed.
Edited 2007-07-03 22:52
I can’t see yours yet. It takes a bit for their DB to be refreshed, and then you will have to wait 10 more minutes for the osnews caching to be refreshed too. Also, make sure that you registered with them with the same email address as you did for osnews.
Edited 2007-07-03 22:55
It works now in my uncashed admin view.
Yay! I see it now. This is cool!
Now, the question is: why don’t the OSAlert editors have avatars?
I do.
Thom doesn’t like them.
I know v3 is on its way out but…
The avatar shouldn’t be in the body of the post but rather next to the name in the header. I realize this means more screen real estate being taken for the post headers but making it its own little box with styled beveled edge like the rest of the header bits would make more sense.
OK, bitchfest over. Great idea guys!
>The avatar shouldn’t be in the body of the post but rather next to the name in the header.
Unfortunately this is not a good idea for comments that are replying to comments with long topics. It just doesn’t fit I am afraid, not in this design anyway…
Any thoughts on supporting Picons in addition to Gravatars? They’re similar in concept but you don’t have to worry about the responsiveness of a centralized server.
Not very popular I am afraid.
Of course they aren’t, but neither are Gravatars (or any of the alternatives like .Mac icons, either). Overall, only a tiny minority of Internet users have any of them.
However, the decentralized serving method used by Picons gives them potentially significantly faster performance than either Gravatars or .Mac icons, and it’s trivial to support additional flavors of personal icon once the initial one has been added. Some forums out there already support Picons and .Mac icons in addition to (or instead of) Gravatars.
Picons see pretty wide support in e-mail utilities ranging from the ubiquitous SquirrelMail to the expansive Emacs. I suspect that considering OS News’ target audience there’ll be just as many here already using Picons in some capacity as there are using Gravatars.
To be honest I find it both annoying and distracting. Taking away focus from the important stuff, the actual text of the comment.
Moving it out of the comment box would help immensely. Making it easier for the brain to filter it out, and concentrate on the interesting bits. I guess there are some usability theories about such things.
I think above the comment box, on the right side could be a better place. It’s just a empty space now, so the spot is avaliable.
Unfortunately, as I explained above, there are MANY cases where the topic is too long and that would not fit the icon on th the table cells above. When Adam was writing v3 made clear that nothing else fits there — at least not all the time.
You can turn off icons when V4 is getting released soon. Besides, as I also explained, most users won’t have a gravatar, sans this very story.
there are MANY cases where the topic is too long and that would not fit the icon on th the table cells above
The MANY cases I really doubt, very long topics are rathere rare. If you look at the stories in todays frontpage there are far fewer(if any) long topics than the number of gravatars. And it’s a simple problem to solve, by placing a length limitation on the subject field.
The only other case making trouble would be in Expanded Threaded view, with many successive replies. And simply placing the gravatar on top of the subject text her would not be a problem. It’s treaded afterall, you don’t read the subject line again and again.
You can turn off icons when V4 is getting released soon</>
Good.
[i]most users won’t have a gravatar
That actually makes it worse, having the text start at different positions makes it harder to ignore/filter out.
What about putting them on the right side? That just seems more intuitive to me because you start reading from the left. It puts the focus on the comment text, not the avatar. For me, having it on the left is like “Bam, avatar!”.
If someone doesn’t like them, it seems to me they wouldn’t be as noticable on the right. Or people that don’t like them would grow to like them if they didn’t find them as distracting.
I second this. On a 1024×768 screen with maximized browser (average these days?) there’s still some space to the right of the current layout. Put it on the right at the top?
We will see what Adam says about this when he comes back from vacations. If he believes that it won’t cause any problems, we can put it on the right-upper cells.
I see there’s already a stylish style for this http://userstyles.org/styles/2789
Many thanks, my Opera is happy now
Count me in for right-aligned icons as well.
IMHO avatars are junk!
I just got one of these things. Database and cache probably haven’t refreshed yet, but maybe I’ll get lucky and see my Gravatar when I post this.
I see why this could bother some people and how it could be distracting, but I like it. It makes it way easier for me to tell who’s posting what, at least if they have a(n) (Gr)avatar. Hell, I tend to ignore the commenters usernames unless I’m giving out mod points or posting a reply. For me, the little pictures are way easier and quicker to recognize.
Wanted to check it out.
I wonder why i didn’t see it?
Edited 2007-07-04 01:54
I can see yours.
I’m all for this option. It helps put a face to the other users here.
Personally, I’m happy to see so many Futurama fans…don’t forget, new episodes next year!
Ahhhh, adblocker was on.
However they are a bit distracting.
Perhaps they could go something like this:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~mjvermeulen/Images/suggestion.bmp
It has been already discussed.
It makes discussions a little less impersonal.
Just a little
Edited 2007-07-04 04:20
So when will you redo the site to use divs instead of tables?
Also thank you for the opt-out on gravatar.
“So when will you redo the site to use divs instead of tables?
”
I’ll answer this one for you as I’m sure the OSAlert staff is sick of answering it: As soon as divs display consistently across a wide variety of browsers.
Repeat after me: There is nothing wrong with using tables to display tabular data.
test
mostly just testing
As long as it fits in without getting in the way of reading.
I don’t really see the usefulness in only providing gravatars to root posts, I’d like to see them in all posts, thanks. Not to mention, I can’t see much use in them anyhow
Now a request, please add http://microid.org/ to http://www.osnews.com/user.php?uid=**** pages so external sites like claimid.com can verify accounts.
It’s really quick & simple to add.
I’ve seen gravatar working on many sites… cool that osnews is now one of them…
just for testing…
this is pretty spiffy. I wish more sites used it.
Adds a bit of much needed personality and personalization to the site…
While we can all recognize certain names, I’m afraid most of the time I can only recognize the names of those who I tend to disagree with. I am TERRIBLE with names, especially usernames…
This not only makes it easier to remember who is who (unless of course they change avatars), it also allows us to glimpse a bit of each other’s personality – mine for example, reveals just how big a nerd I am…
test
Like somebody said above – make gravatar part of the comment header. In start of text it just breaks text and comments flow.
Little mockup – current and proposed placement:
http://www.stv.ee/~donq/osnews/gravatar.htm
Instead of 1×1 blank gif you could then display some other placeholder to match avatar size. Currently even 1×1 is too much – it makes first comment line indented (at least in Opera), what looks ugly.
Otherwise good idea
As I said before, this is discussed, but we have to wait for Adam to decide if there is indeed space or not. I don’t know all of Adam’s code, so I can’t do this change myself. Adam comes back in a week I think.
I just had another look at the code, I don’t think we can put it in the header. You see, there is already a cell called “Score: X” or “OSN Staff” and this cell must be quite large — larger than the icon needs to be which automatically adopts the width of the largest cell in the table. Because the headers are usually long, this will push the design 10% of the time to create a third line of text, and this will make the design really ugly.
Sorry, but looking at the code, it is not possible to put the icon on the headers. Just wait for version 4 of osnews where the design is different.
Edited 2007-07-04 16:58
I guess this could be fun
hmmm i changed my email to my gravatar email and it isnt showing? maybe itll take a while for the db to update?
Edited 2007-07-04 16:43
<Test> hmmmmmm
Either their DB hasn’t refreshed yet (it takes 20 mins or so), or your icon is as unlucky living on the same server as Jayson Knight’s and it’s up and down all the time.
Good !! Let’s test it.
new test
Please wait for the caches to be refreshed. It is already been discussed twice in this discussion.
i like this feature a lot. With a little bit more of choice and settings on the gravatar side, it could be a very cool app
It didn’t seem to work when I tried it earlier/
did it work ?
seems not, so i guess i may have registered with osnews.com using another email address,
anyway of finding out what email addy i used to register here with ? i dont see it in preferences, only the one email addy i use now
cheers
anyweb
Edited 2007-07-12 21:13