Updates to forum (ongoing)

[Crumpets]

Is there any way we can submit new country avatar icons if we want to make them?

[Crumpets]

Not sure if this is the format that's most helpful, so let me know if you want it some other way, but here's my attempt at making Syria avatars:

[Crumpets]

Not sure if this is the format that's most helpful, so let me know if you want it some other way, but here's my attempt at making Syria avatars:

Can you fix the blurry text?

I think these are fixed:

[Crumpets]

Guys, sorry for the pet peeve but PLEASE make sure if you're making an avatar not to have overlapping black pixels! It hurts my (and i'm sure others' too) eyes! Of course, thank you for all the effort.

EDIT: to clarify, I meant CONNECTED black pixels on the outline of countries/states, etc. Do have them diagonally touching but not side-by-side, or, god forbid, more. I believe this is the guidelines previously and initially followed, so that should not be an issue either way.

There are definitely some exceptions, though. The New York avatar, for example, has a lot of "stacked" pixels, although I agree they do look better when it's minimized.

[Crumpets]

Lourdes - good start, but needs to be crisper (they are too blurry), and smaller. Use the other avatars as a guide. Same font/color per each avatar party type, same general size, etc.

Which font do you use?

I just copy and paste from existing avatars, with the only important thing to note being the white letters aren't actually white - they're transparent, I think.

[Crumpets]

Iraq avatars:

[Crumpets]

I can manage to get a white background but not transparent, what program or tool could I use to how this?

One option would be to open it in Photoshop, erase the background, then save it as a PNG. If you don't have Photoshop or another program that lets you do that, you can upload it here with a non-white background (I recommend using a bright color that isn't similar to the colors of the avatars like cyan or magenta), and just click on the background, then save it.

https://www.peko-step.com/en/tool/alphachannel_en.html

[Crumpets]

How would people feel about avatars for major Indian nations/reservations? I generally agree we don't want to go too overboard with historical or extremely local avatars. But this is one I'd be reasonably cool with, especially since it does have political implications what kind of jurisdiction one lives in, in a way that congressional districts or counties don't.

I think the biggest concern, as others have noted, is we don't want to have a list of thousands of avatars for new users to sort though. Would it be possible under the "Forum Profile Information" menu to have nested options that would make the list less daunting? For example, having an initial list for "US States and Territories, Other Countries and Territories, Historical Entities," and within each of these, have more thorough lists? Just a thought.

[Crumpets]

The problem is that this forum's avatar selection has long been based on sets, with each distinct region having multiple different versions based on party. To add another categorization would make it too complicated to manage. I don't really know how I would go about doing it even. The entire avatar selection format is based on literal file folders, like those you use on Windows. The avatar files each go into folders.  And the forum only supporters one level of folders, meaning I can't add folders-within-folders and thus cannot categorize the way you're suggesting without major modifications.

However we go about this, it has to work with the system as it currently exists.

That makes sense. I vote those of us making new avatars prioritize existing countries where we could conceivably have members from and then down the road, maybe we can get a little crazier if adding those hasn't caused any major problems.

[Crumpets]

Moldova avatars:

[Crumpets]

Can we just go back to the original 50 states, Canadian provinces, add in maybe a dozen or so major foreign countries? These exotic places that are getting added, not to mention historical avatars, go way too far.

Lol, you have a freaking Prussia avatar. Let us have our fun.

[Crumpets]

Are we also getting Virgin avatars?

[Crumpets]

As requested, here's Chicago.  With this and the NYC and LA avatars, that's the three largest US cities.  I'm not sure if we should add any more cities, because we could make over a hundred of them.

Chicago and LA have weirdly un-iconic shapes for how important they are. If this weren't labeled, I probably wouldn't be able to tell you what city it was.

Out of curiosity, what is the near-exclave on the NW end?