Site Relaunch

[Cyber']

For those uploading to Gravatar, it takes about 5-10 minutes after it's uploaded to sync it here.

Seems like most of the disagreements are regarding the avatar shift more than the site itself, and I'm indifferent on that. However...I'd say that you guys did a very good job on the design of the main site. I'm impressed!

[The Toxic Avenger]

The main site design is pretty awesome actually. :D

[Captain Izayoi]

10/10 would stare at again, as far as the main site is concerned.

[Ivan]

What is this gravatar bullshit? Why'd you even need this god...

[Michelle]

seems like we have gone back 10 years.... tiny 80 x 80 images and no animated gif's :(

[infurnus]

The avatars are 125x125 and we're looking into giving users more customization choices. I also added some info to the Change Avatar page.
Hopefully things like animating avatars will be able to return, and best case scenario, users would be able to change avatars from within the user control panel.

Cross your fingers!

[Blzut3]

seems like we have gone back 10 years....

10 years ago animated gifs were 1337, so no.

[Camo Yoshi]

Ugh, I fucking hate Grava-whatever the fucking bullshit it's called.

[Konar6]

I absolutely love the site design, it's above all my expectations. It looks even better than the old ST website. It's been worth the wait.
Maybe just the font is a little too big, the bug tracker colors could be better distinguishable (needs testing vs. resolved and feedback vs. assigned), and the forum and wiki better connected and unified (header at least?). But that's just all little nitpicks.

Unfortunately the gravatar thing I call heavy fail. Everyone is reasonably mad, the avatar system was fine, and why fix what isn't broken? Dunno why it is necessary to have a universal account for the forum and tracker, with the negative exchange for this avatar mess.

[Michelle]

seems like we have gone back 10 years....

10 years ago animated gifs were 1337, so no.

Oh ok then, I thought they still were 1337 language...shows how much I know eh. What are they now then?

[Blzut3]

Dunno why it is necessary to have a universal account for the forum and tracker

To solve the issue we've had since we started with the tracker. "Why should I have to make a second account to report bugs?" (Alt: "I don't want to report this bug since I don't have a tracker account.") Ultimately my goal is to do whatever will assist in the development of Zandronum. In my eyes the website has two purposes: To bring new users into the project, and to allow easy communication between the users and developers in order to further development of the project.

Also we occasionally talk about an in game authentication system which could be hooked into a centralized account system. In any case, it is ideal that the account system be seamless across the site.

What are they now then?

A gimmick. (Unless being used to illustrate a process.)

[someoneelse]

With Gravatar, I left it long time ago when I noticed one of my avatars shows up damn everywhere I put my e-mail on, and not every avatar matches everywhere... it may be a good solution for some blog-like sites comment section, but not for forums. Also, a simple reverse image search can give others more information what you do then you'd be comfortable with.
Well, but since you're working on allowing just hotlinked avatars, I won't rush you :)

[BloodyAcid]

edit: shitty son of a bitch changed my avatar-less to this shit
edit2: shitty sign ups

... I went from neutral to against. Gotta legitimately change my avatar now.

(Maybe I should change it to that TH thing I went and looked up recently. /off topic, that shit's pretty cool. Just after a day or two, I can finally make the connection to some people's usernames :P)

[Dark-Assassin]

I don't understand why Gravatar is being used as well.
I don't want to register for something external and extra just so I can have an avatar, which is better than these, well, 'crappy' ones.
I'd rather have none than this, and yet that isn't even possible.

I spent a few hours to make it so that images off site were allowed to be over the maximum avatar size and yet not break a single thing, including the maximum size boundaries.
Before this, I've had some direct complaints about it, but since after, people were happy.

Don't fix what's not broken.
Don't try and improve something if it's perfect the way it is.
Unless you know you can absolutely make it much better than it already is.
This Gravatar just isn't better.

[mr fiat]

With Gravatar, I left it long time ago when I noticed one of my avatars shows up damn everywhere I put my e-mail on, and not every avatar matches everywhere... it may be a good solution for some blog-like sites comment section, but not for forums. Also, a simple reverse image search can give others more information what you do then you'd be comfortable with.
Well, but since you're working on allowing just hotlinked avatars, I won't rush you :)

knowing this, I hate it even more and I will completely refuse to use gravatar. (not that I would ever use it) also I don't see the need to have a avatar on the bugtracker :V even thou the forum and tracker are going to be unified I wont use the tracker anyway, so for me its a lose-lose situation for now.

[Ivan]

I don't understand why Gravatar is being used as well.
I don't want to register for something external and extra just so I can have an avatar, which is better than these, well, 'crappy' ones.
I'd rather have none than this, and yet that isn't even possible.

I spent a few hours to make it so that images off site were allowed to be over the maximum avatar size and yet not break a single thing, including the maximum size boundaries.
Before this, I've had some direct complaints about it, but since after, people were happy.

Don't fix what's not broken.
Don't try and improve something if it's perfect the way it is.
Unless you know you can absolutely make it much better than it already is.
This Gravatar just isn't better.

It's so funny these come from you yet I'll have to agree with you on this one.

[Qent]

Also, a simple reverse image search can give others more information what you do then you'd be comfortable with.

If you're worried about privacy, someone pointed out to me some bigger problems with Gravatar. Granted, it's probably still only a minor issue, and there are even more ways to protect yourself on Gravatar, but it's good to know.

[Luke]

Dunno why it is necessary to have a universal account for the forum and tracker

To solve the issue we've had since we started with the tracker. "Why should I have to make a second account to report bugs?" (Alt: "I don't want to report this bug since I don't have a tracker account.") Ultimately my goal is to do whatever will assist in the development of Zandronum. In my eyes the website has two purposes: To bring new users into the project, and to allow easy communication between the users and developers in order to further development of the project.

I understand you, and I support your intentions beacause it's like you said: the first time I came across a bug in ST I didn't report it because I had to make a tracker account. Then I made it because I wanted to, but I can see that someone else would just flip the table and do something else.

But is really realy needed to have the same avatar here and there?

I mean... this gravatar thing really upsetted me, the rest of the site is beautiful, but when I read about gravatar (╯°_°）╯︵ ┻━┻

edit: anyway, besides my first reaction, I'll be fine whatever way you'll deal with this; sure that I'd like to change my avatar without gravatar, if it will not be possible I'll keep this fancy thing and nothing more: I don't post to show my avatar after all. :)

[infurnus]

There's going to be a way to use a non Gravatar avatar: Replacement avatar system in the works (from http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=1155)

The test page for it I saw lets you choose what kind of randomized default Gravatar will show (what is showing up for most people right now), or it lets you put a custom avatar URL in.

[Eonfge]

Noo, not Gravatar! It's a horrible idea to centralize forum avatars and to link them together. I have no desire to share one avatar with multiple fora and I do not wish to use a third-party system to log into a forum. I hope that it's reverted or that it becomes optional.

The new site looks a lot better and I hope that the forum will get the same love and will follow in the new house-style.