Git yer Gravatar! Limited-time offer! Operators are standing by! Not available in stores!

A year ago, Tracy announced that we’d begun using a service called Gravatar (globally recognized avatar) that allows people who add comments here to put a face to their name.

Many of you who regularly comment have already set up your Gravatar. For example, here’s a snapshot of 8 comments attached to the Sweet Lou’s post:

gravatar-sshot

Tracy wrote:

To get your own avatar, go to the Gravatar site and sign up. Be sure you use the same e-mail address that you use for your comments on this site (if you’ve used more than one, that’s fine; you can add other addresses later). After you’re in, upload an image of yourself — you’ll be able to crop it right on the Gravatar site. As soon as you’ve added your photo and the gears of the internet grind a little, your avatar will automagically appear on all your comments past and future.

Since the Gravatar service allows people to create multiple avatars, you can have fun and be creative. But in the same way that we require real names for our comments on our community blog, we’re also requiring real faces (of you, not your dog, cat, or Aunt Tillie) to go along with those names.

I’m available to help you set up your Gravatar. Contact me.

10 Comments

  1. Anthony Pierre said:

    you too can look like a scary dude, just like me.

    January 9, 2009
  2. Julie Bixby said:

    Griff,
    How long does it take after you change your picture for it to show up?
    Julie

    January 9, 2009
  3. Griff Wigley said:

    Julie, it typically takes less than 30 minutes for the Gravatar to show up.

    January 9, 2009
  4. Jessica Paxton said:

    Mine never seems to work. So I’ve given up. Sorry!

    January 9, 2009
  5. Anne Bretts said:

    Are you requiring a photo to participate?

    January 9, 2009
  6. Griff Wigley said:

    Jessica, your Gravatar works just fine. You’ve just been forgetting to use your Gmail address when you add a comment here. I’ve changed it for you.

    FYI, you can add your Carleton address so that both work.

    January 10, 2009
  7. Griff Wigley said:

    I got an inquiry from Linda Seebach wondering:

    A small point; once you’ve set up LGN to accept gravatars, I don’t see how you can require people to use their own faces. If someone comes here who already has a different kind of gravatar –Mona Obremski’s Mandelbrot set, for instance — won’t it just pop in? I know mine, which I set up for LGN, turns up on other blogs where I comment, and I have no idea what their local rules are, if any.

    Good point, Linda. ‘Requiring’ is probably too strong a word. ‘Strongly encourage’ would probably be a better phrase. 

    But it’s relatively easy to create an extra email account for yourself (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc) and then associate a face photo with that address within your Gravatar account. You never really have to use that extra email address after that. Just have email forwarded to the address you normally use.

    January 10, 2009
  8. Tim Freeland said:

    I’m in! You sold me on the Gravatar.

    Vinny (Anthony), you are scary in more ways then people know.

    January 11, 2009
  9. Griff Wigley said:

    Anne, we strongly prefer a photo of a person’s actual face! Next would be a sketch that closely approximates it.

    Hey, Tim, good to have you here.

    January 11, 2009
  10. Mona Obremski said:

    Linda Seebach-Extra points for knowing what my Gravatar was!
    Like Tim Freeland, it was Griff who sold me on the Gravatar, and joining the Technorati. However, I did not get the memo on the YourFaceOnly stipulation. I guess I might have derived that from the other Gravatars here, but since I wasn’t thinking only of Locally Grown, it did not occur to me that I should follow suit with this site’s preference.
    Perhaps I should inquire then if there are other stipulations before I create another one. For instance, must the picture be no more than one year old? If my Gravatar is older than that, must it be updated?
    Sigh. All that clicking.
    A sketch that closely approximates? Okay if it flatters my forehead?

    January 14, 2009

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