I’m still playing with the idea of having avatars for the site. First, for those with no idea what I’m talking about, an avatar is an 80px x 80px (or anysize) picture that appears next to your name when posting, or commenting (an example). I’ve found a cool plugin that allows for each comment to be assigned an avatar set by us, then when the person commenting makes a certain number of comments they can pick their own avatar, and that picture stays with all of your comments thereafter, each person having their own. The concerns I have are, ONE: too many pictures on the blog. We’ve had some posts with 40 plus comments, if a small picture was on each of those.. sheesh. TWO: I can’t seem to motivate the dozens of readers of McBlog who don’t comment, to comment.. so I’m scared if avatars were displayed it would scare away anyone on the verge of commenting to never comment…Aunt Melissa! On the flip side, I think it would be fun to have them.. and that’s about it, b/c they don’t serve any purpose beisdes fun, oh and it might get a few more people to register…?
So I want to hear from you, the faithful readers of McBlog, what would having a small picture next to your name as your id badge do/or not do for you? Increase/Decrease Comments? Scare/Entertain?
P.S. Check out this avatar maker to see some of the options you will have if we do avatars.