Proposal: Add the option to disable Gravatar

[niklas-heer]

Sorry if I am bordering you guys, but I have a forum with really privacy-focused people so I researched a lot of stuff lately.

The problem with Gravatar is that according to this discussion the Gravatar service was only created to collect data and monetize it. Therefor I would like to have an option to disable Gravatar in the ACP, as discussed a while ago here.

[julianlam]

was only created to collect data and monetize it

I wouldn't go so far as to assume that was the only reason for Gravatar's inception. You'll have to admit that it does come in handy for quick avatar creation/reference.

That said, I do eventually want to strip out Gravatar into a plugin, so we'll use this as the issue to track that eventual change.

[niklas-heer]

I wouldn't go so far as to assume that was the only reason for Gravatar's inception. You'll have to admit that it does come in handy for quick avatar creation/reference.

Sure it is really handy, but it also comes with hidden costs and these costs imoh are not worth the thing you're getting.
So I'm very glad to hear these news, thanks! :)

[phoenixlzx]

+1 on this, and in some area gravatar may stuck on loading.

[NijiharaTsubasa]

Please, we need a way to disable gravatar.
We are hosting a forum with nodebb in China. China GFWed(blocked) gravatar.
And as a result it stuck on loadinguntil connection timeout, even not displaying the default one set in admin panel.

[Watomsk]

I concur with Phoenixlzx. Gravatar sometimes gets stuck on loading in my forums. I really wish we could disable it.

[robotanarchy]

I'd also like to have an option for disabling gravatar.

[julianlam]

We have a working solution although it is currently not compatible with all
browsers.

Still investigating alternatives....

On Wed, 21 Oct 2015 12:44 robotanarchy notifications@github.com wrote:

I'd also like to have an option for disabling gravatar.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#3103 (comment).

[robotanarchy]

@julianlam: I don't quite understand what you need to investigate or check against browsers there.

When Gravatar is disabled, I'd expect a default picture, something like that (random google images search...): http://www.keralabjp.org/images/No_Image.jpg

Uploading custom user pictures already works anyway.

If you want to make it extra nice, give the admin the ability to upload a default picture.

So what exactly is the problem?

[julianlam]

The alternative was to use a letter with random background, constructed via
css.

Works great on Chrome, doesn't work at all. on Firefox.

Version 1 of this worked quite well across browsers, but was quite a bit of
work to convert for existing themes, hence the search for a better
solution.

On Wed, 21 Oct 2015 23:52 robotanarchy notifications@github.com wrote:

@julianlam https://github.com/julianlam: I don't quite understand what
you need to investigate or check against browsers there.

When Gravatar is disabled, I'd expect a default picture, something like
that (random google images search...):
http://www.keralabjp.org/images/No_Image.jpg

Uploading custom user pictures already works anyway.

If you want to make it extra nice, give the admin the ability to upload a
default picture.

So what exactly is the problem?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#3103 (comment).

[robotanarchy]

How about generating these images on the server side (maybe with a cache?) or at least implementing the simple solution I've described until the better version is ready?

[julianlam]

They're not images.

On Thu, 22 Oct 2015 13:21 robotanarchy notifications@github.com wrote:

How about generating these images on the server side (maybe with a cache?)
or at least implementing the simple solution I've described until the
better version is ready?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#3103 (comment).

[robotanarchy]

What I ment is: generate it on the server side, then cache it as image (the identicon nodejs library can do that).

However, if you want to do it client-side only, what about Jdenticon for example? It works on the following browsers:

Internet Explorer 9 and later
Chrome 7 and later
Firefox 4 and later
Opera 11 and later
Safari 5 and later

EDIT: I just saw that Jdenticon also works with nodejs, if desired.

[julianlam]

User Icons merged into master now 😄