Updates to forum (ongoing)

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Upcoming avatars include England, Wales, Northern Ireland, South Korea, South Africa, and Egypt.

And we're just getting started.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Can we get avatars for Pakistan and Malaysia? And also, I'm troubled by the length of the Chile avatar. I realize it's an unusually-shaped country, but it makes posts take up an unnecessary amount of screen real estate.

Then we need UAE, too

Done.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Turkey:

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

New York City:
 

Republic of Texas (historical):
 

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Iraq avatars:

Go Ba'athist or go home.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Poland and Iraq merged to become the Polo-Iraqi federation

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

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.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

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?

I was wondering that myself.  That's O'Hare, Chicago and is a transportation hub that contains a major airport.

By the looks of it, it was one of Trump's best areas of Chicago in 2016.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Scott, can you reduce the width of those to no wider than 100px (they are currently 120px)?

When I do, they come out fuzzy and distorted.  I might have to redo these if they can't fit. 

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Chicago, take 2.  Hopefully these came out alright.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Just like I opposed the historical avatars I also oppose city avatars (as Scott himself said, there could be hundreds). And I don't think "just the main 3" is a good cutoff, it is very arbitrary.

I am of the opinion we should have only US states, US territories (so if anyone wants to draw a Puerto Rico avatar, feel free), UK/Canadian regions and provinces; and actual countries.

Still this is less bad than the historical ones, at least these ones are actual places.

At least with Chicago and NYC, the cities themselves are the cultural mainstays of the states that contain them.  I'm iffy about LA (and I didn't create those - I'm not sure who did), but I think the other two are significant and distinct enough to justify them having their own avatars.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Virginia, do you still plan on having mock elections for the general?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Do you mean the mock election on uselectionatlas.org? Because that would be Dave's purview, not mine.

Yeah, like with the primaries.

Hopefully Dave isn't solely focusing his time on maps now.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

How would Virginia (and others) feel about removing the friend list feature? I do accept and occasionally send out friend requests as something of a hat-tipping gesture, but in reality they're probably the most useless feature on the forum.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

How would Virginia (and others) feel about removing the friend list feature? I do accept and occasionally send out friend requests as something of a hat-tipping gesture, but in reality they're probably the most useless feature on the forum.

I wouldn't mind it if it were gone, but since some like it, I'd rather just have a way to let people automagically know I don't accept friend requests.

If it's slowing the site down or contributing to the daily crashes, I think it's worth taking it out.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Since Virginia and Dave are working to reduce crashes, I feel I should note that there was a fairly lengthy crash last night. I don't remember the exact time it started, but I was trying to post a reply to Calthrina at the time, which finally posted at 2:31 ET.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Atlanta avatar pls

Considering how small Atlanta proper is relative to the metro, I don't think one would work.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

For the record, I would argue that Chicago and NYC are easily recognizable shapes, at least to most people on this site.

I've never been a fan of the Los Angeles avatar. In addition to being butt ugly (and inaccurate, because Beverley Hills looks incorporated rather than carved out as a separate city like it legally is) - no offense to whoever made it - it's not culturally or politically distinct enough from the rest of California and the same cannot be said about the other two cities.

An Atlanta metro avatar could be justified, but would only work if it encompassed several counties and would still end up looking like a blob.