Merry Christmas all. I've decided (although I may regret it with the added administrative work) to allow members to pick their own avatars as a Christmas present.

A few rules:
1) The board management reserves the right to delete / deactivate any avatar we feel inappropriate or does not follow these rules. We may also deactivate this feature for any Member who repeatedly does not follow these rules. We will also provide guideance where needed. Avatars do not need to be Monte Carlo related.

2) The prefered avatar size is 70x70. Excursions out of this size limit should be no more than 100 width and 125 height. Excursions allowed only in special cases. If it's square, make it 70x70. We will be strictly regulating this.

3) File size should be reasonable. We still have a lot of dial-up members so please consider them. Animated GIFs are allowed, so long as their file size is reasonable. 10K file size should be a limit. If you're going to exceed that, contact me first.

4) This feature is open to Members, Moderators and Administrators. Sorry, Junior and New Members will have to attain full Member status before being allowed access to this feature. That threshold is currently set at 30 posts.

5) Members who have avatars that were initiated by me in the past may need to have me back out the changes to their profile for that avatar. IF you get a double avatar (old and new) showing up, contact me to delete the old avatar.

6) To select an avatar, it must reside somewhere on the net first. You can use your Album to store your avatar. Please do not link off of other websites. It robs them of their bandwidth. I didn't like it when people did that to us.. we shouldn't do it to other sites.

7) You will now find a feature in your profile to update and change your avatar. There are also some pre-canned avatars available.

Have fun with it.. Avatars are a great way to show a bit of your personallity.

Merry Christmas!