The IntenseDebate Avatar Is Dead. Long Live The Gravatar!
Big news! We’re migrating our avatar system over to Gravatar! We’re all part of the Automattic family and Gravatar has it down, so as the saying goes, “why recreate the wheel?” This is going to be a gradual process so don’t panic.
What is a gravatar?
A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums, so why not on any site?
We’ve rolled out the first steps of this process. We now check to see if you have a gravatar and if you do, we’ll automatically use it. If you are using an IntenseDebate avatar instead of your gravatar then you’ll notice a change (unless your gravatar and IntenseDebate avatar are the same!). Our apologies for the inconvenience.
Next up, you might have noticed the blue message in your IntenseDebate account prompting you to verify your email address. This is to make sure you are who you say you are. 😉 If you haven’t verified your email address yet, please go ahead and do so.
We’ll keep you posted on the next phases of this project. If you haven’t discovered Gravatar yet, check it out and create your own!
Posted by Michael Koenig in features
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This is a good idea, well done!
Just testing plugin
Not really, What about those people who have not signed up on Gravatar.
It makes your site look boring because of the mystery man image
I like this idea as well, but have a big problem with it. I handle a lot of sites, and use my email address for most purposes such as setting up this account to use on my stations website MyFox9online.com, but I don't want my picture to show up on all post's that are supposed to be provided from the station. Is there any way to make a choice to pick the avatar I loaded instead of the Gravatar? or a way in Gravatar to make different photos show up on different sites, or services?
Sorry for the major delay on this. Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately the best way to do this would be to add a new email address and gravatar in your gravatar account, and then use that email address in your ID profile. I know this isn't an ideal solution, and we're looking at improving this.
We're looking to possibly switch over to gravatars completely , and update our integration so that you can upload a new one from your ID profile (no ETA yet). Offering an option to switch between your gravatars for ID would be a cool enhancement.
fun times.
Cool. Makes sense to consolidate things a bit.
Now how about
a) Fixing the WP comment syncing issues that still happen now and then
b) Creating an exporter that will allow someone switching back to plain WordPress comments to keep the comment threading.
We're aware of these issues and will be addressing them in the coming versions of the plugin. No ETA right now. Thanks for your patience on this.
intense debate just ties itself in with everything, very nice!
With more on the way… B)
Thanks, Michael and Isaac and others for bringing things back. I like the new forum setups, the graphics, and all of it. I can now, once again become real on my selected forums.
Respectfully,
Jim
Glad to hear it Jim! Keep commenting!
in your faq's section, one topic reads thus:
Can I import my comments?
Look, we know that we're not your first and we may not be your last comment system, and we're ok with that. Our comment importers and exporters make bringing your comments with you a piece of cake, so you don't need to worry about losing a single one.
however, checking on the dashboard, the only option available is to export the comments using xml. how can we import our comments then, just in case we decide to stick with the blogger's comment system or for a possible leaning towardsother comment systems available like disqus?
the reason for this hesitation on continuing to use intensedebate is that a lot of times, some comments tend to disappear in the thread most especially if the thread is already very long.
looking forward to your postive response. thanks!
Unfortunately we've disabled our Blogger importer. I apologize for the inconvenience and confusion. The FAQ will be updated shortly.
We have pushed an update to test a potential fix for this issue moving forward. The issue is most likely caused by a snippet of code that was causing the comment count to sometimes be off when new comments were added. This would cause the comment to not load correctly.
The fix we've pushed should prevent this from occurring with future comments. Affected threads will also be restored once a new comment is posted in that thread. Once we are certain that this is the appropriate fix, we will push a system wide update that will restore any affected comment.
Please help us test this and let us know if you encounter any more "disappearing" comments.
This is a HORRIBLE idea. Most of us choose different avatars for various purposes. I was not thrilled to see my photo suddenly appearing on intense debates. There should be an option for this. Actually, I'm trying to delete my intense debate account, but apparently that is not possible according to everyone on the forums.
I wrote a blog post about "competition" michael and it's relation to ID:
http://churchcrunch.com/2009/05/18/what-happens-w…
I hear ya loud and clear man. We're looking into some ways to introduce a new challenge for you. Nothing concrete yet.
Nice, but would be nice if the gravatar worked…. Im not showing any for my profile on my dashboard even though I choose and set one up.
Did you register with the email address that you use for your gravatar?
I just downloaded this plugin despite reading some bad reviews and im not really sure what they were talking about. Its really REALLY good and I beleive it will stimulate some conversation on our site 🙂 thanks guys
Thanks for the kind words! We're glad to hear it!
We're exploring some ways to make this easier. Please email me and I'll help you out.
Right now, on my usual forums (of which you know too well, I fear) email is not working at all. I suspect it is merely a missing activate button. But, in all seriousness my friends, it is a relief. I was getting up to 150 emails a morning, from the overnight comments. Now, I can simply peruse my own personal email again.
Humor intended, of course. But the obvious selection you have created will help a whole lot when it all starts working again.
I really love Intensive Debate. This is the right software for the times.
Respectfully,
Jim
I need help w/my gravatar. I use the same profile pic at most sites so want to use it in intense debate and everywhere else. However Gravatar keeps making it HUGE and telling me I have to crop most of my face off. I've tried shrinking the image, making the image larger w/white space around it, etc…… I'm out of ideas. Please help.
Molly
Good move 🙂
why can't i get past 115 points on my ID?
Thanks for adding Gravatar support. It's much goodness.
so is the service worthwhile or not? Can somebody post a review? thank you in advance
Not working for me either
GOOD IDEA and HAPPY DAYS.
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Great, but when is it updating? Gravatar will still show my old image…
Can you make sure that you're using the same email address? Perhaps you updated your gravatar for a different email address than the one associated with your ID account. Please check this out. I just updated mine with no issue.
Great work!
This looks great. I have switched some of my blogs from Joomla to wordpress as I had problems with the plugin. I will try this on a few joomla blog that I have to see how it works.
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New question/request:
Are comments stored in your side or our side? Would changing the timestamp of the respective comment do the trick? If so, and if the comments are on your side, we would be grateful if you guys can change the timestamp of this one comment so it will be displayed on top.
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In my opinion this is a great idea
my articles
yeap:)) goooood work:)
Really good work. ^^
Hi,
New here – my personal gravatar isn't the same as the pic we use for our sites logo where we have multiple writers. Is there a way to utilize this service with our site's logo without me having to change my gravatar?
Unfortunately Gravatar overrides the avatar, so you will need to change your Gravatar. I apologize for the inconvenience, I know this isn't ideal.
I need help for this side how to go other process so just reply me plz …..
Please email me at support@intensedebate.com with specific details about what the issue is and I'll be happy to help. Thanks.
I checked your user account and there is no account associated with it. Can you please email me specifics at support@intensedebate.com and I'll take a look.
[…] und großartig ankündigt endlich auf die sinnlosen eigenen Avatar zu verzichten und die Synergien mit Gravatar zu […]
How long does it take for the gravatar to show on intensedebate after you edit it on gravatar?
Sorry for the delay, somehow I overlooked your comment. It may take a couple of minutes – we're working on improving that. Did your gravatar update?
too bad i can't get it too work. the wordpress plugin shows one gravatar, and gravatar shows another, no matter how many times I tell Intense Rebate to use it. Oh well…
I'm not entirely sure I understand. Can you please send me details at support@intensedebate.com and we'll take a look. Thanks for your patience.
excellent, now i dont need a seperate avator to my wordpres avatar
What about adding randomized Gravatars for commenters without intense debate? I would prefer to look at something other than the grey portrait. 😀