New User Profile Picture

[CallMeRK]

Hello everyone,
When a new user signs up and sees that everyone has the same profile picture, it can give the impression that the forum is using fake accounts.

I came across another forum where users were required to upload a profile picture to complete their registration. This helped make the community feel more personal and authentic.

Would it be a good idea to implement something similar here?

 

[fdk]

I can definitely see that for somebody who might not be a regular forum'er as such, seeing several members with the "same" profile pic/avatar might be confusing and might lead some to think that they are duplicate accounts. This is actually a really good insight from somebody "outside the bubble" of these types of forums in general, so thank you.

It might be nice if we could have a few different "default" avatars, and have one randomly "allocated" to each member when they sign up. I'm sure this would require a custom plugin if something doesn't exist already, but I have a feeling it'd be a very small development and heck could be something someone here on the community might be able to whip up for us.

 

[Bryn]

Actually, to be fair, I always think that all accounts without an avatar are all @Cedric (as he had this as his avatar one time)

Anyway, I see some other forums make use of Gravatar so that they have a unique avatar generated for them (like the one on my forum for instance). Wonder if this place can benefit from that too?

 

[Al]

Gravatar is used, but it requires the user to have a gravatar account. Not everyone does.