Shortly after joining, and posting, you will be allowed to upload an Avatar. To help moderators, please verify to the best of your ability that the picture you want to have is not already taken.
The requirements are:
•Logged in using your random allocated (emailed) password at least once (i.e, your account is not marked as temporary). This is necessary to validate your email address. If you cannot remember receiving a temporary password, please use forgot password to get all info back to your mailbox.
•Please make or find an avatar that is square or nearly so, any size is fine but it will be resized to a width of 50 pixels when it is uploaded.
You are responsible for any copyright issues that may arise over use of your avatar. In case another member claims your avatar is identical, the member using it first will have precedence. Similar avatars are allowed, and an animated and static version of the same avatar are considered different.
*NOTE: If you joined after February 2002 and are a premium member, you have the ability to upload an animated avatar immediately.
Uploading an avatar strips out any animation, unless one of the qualifications below have been met:
Became a Premium Member: Premium accounts have the ability to upload animated avatars immediately after the account is created, or converted from a basic account!
Purchased 5 Tool Points: For other accounts, avatars cannot be uploaded unless you have purchased at least 5 site tool points from this page.
Premium members maintain the ability to have animated avatars regardless of tool point balance. In other words, if you use your tool points, and your balance goes below 5, you can still have animated avatars. A Premium member will retain an animated avatar even with a zero tool point balance.
Animation Ability Donated To You: Other site users may donate the ability to have an animated avatar to you, if they so choose from this page.
Animation Requirements: All animated avatars must be 50 pixels wide and 50 pixels tall and the image 8k (8,192 bytes) or less in size. If a file is uploaded outside of these requirements, the animation will be stripped.
Two things to try...First, log out (click the logout link in the upper right corner) then log back in. Check your avatar link in preferences. It should be good to go. If not, go to this link, and have your password sent to you again. Follow the instructions in the email. That should fix things.
If not, post a message in Avatar Help or IM a moderator for assistance.
Once approved, avatars are mirrored or uploaded to other DSL Reports servers. This process can take up to an hour.
If your Avatar aspect ratio changed, then some old threads in some forums may squash or stretch your new avatar.
Never fear, it'll sort itself out. We recommend only uploading square avatars for this reason.
Occasionally your local browser cache may need to be updated for your new avatar to appear. Simply refresh or Shift reload any page that has your avatar on it, and the new one should appear.
Yes, assuming you have at least 5 tool points, you can donate them by visiting here.
If you wish to do so anonymously, you may purchase tool points for another member by visiting the DSL Reports Online Store.
With either method you choose, you need to input their user name EXACTLY as it appears at DSL Reports for the system to deposit the tool points into their account. The blue spinning star will appear next to their name at the next server update (usually within a day or so).
If both parties agree to it you can use the same Avatar. If the person that had the Avatar first doesn't agree, they have priority and moderators decisions in these matters are final.
Yes! Premium members are allowed to upload an animated avatar immediately, regardless of tool point balance or tenure at the site. For more information about premium accounts, click here. Premium members are allowed to save twenty avatars in their library, for further information click here To upgrade to a premium account, click here.
Yes! Any picture that is the work of someone else may hold a copyright, and if so, that person may not allow you to use it. There are ways to get permission, by either email or a letter, and the owner may also ask for a small amount of compensation. The easiest way to avoid this is to use avatars provided to you by this site, or try to search for "free avatars" on the web.
Please be patient The artists are not all on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Sometimes they do tend to their lives outside of Broadband Reports and Avatar/Graphics Help. It may be a day or more before someone sees your request and acts upon it. Also, the first effort returned may not be the one you will choose. Wait for a few options to pop up before picking one.
Keep in mind that the amount of work to be done will tend to determine how long responses take. A simple resize to fit the avatar specs will usually take several minutes (once the request is seen). A request to take one's static image and have several characters, items or images moving, etc., usually takes a little longer.
Please don't IM individual artists for a new request. It may be several days before they log on and your request may get overlooked. If you post a new request, you should start a new topic in the forum, where more artists will see your request.
If possible, be specific about what you want and provide constructive feedback if/when options are uploaded/presented - saying "keep them coming" or "I'll wait for something else" does not provide much direction to the artists.
One fix is to flush the browser's cache, another involves the configuration in ZAP, another involves the configuration of Proxo, another may involve an IE6 setting, might be others...perhaps somebody else recalls other options.
Premium members can use the avatar library feature to save avatars; this feature also allows premium members to easily reload the saved avatar in the future. Please see: Site FAQs
Uploading an avatar strips out the transparency, unless the image is exactly 50 pixels wide and 50 pixels tall, and the image is 8k (8,192 bytes) or less in size.
It is a place for Premium members that allows you to save your current avatar before you load a new one. This permits you to reload the old one at a later date without mod approval again.