ellamcumber wrote:
I know that with the amount of members on PPT uploading that size avatar it would be a strain on servers and such ...
Paul wrote:
80x80 avatars are approximately one-third smaller than 100x100 avatars. When you have thousands of avatars that are being used on PPT, it does make a significant difference.
[Since the topic is already bumped,] Let's clear this one up: the resources required from PPT, server-side, to increase that limit are insignificant. Storage is cheap, bandwidth is plentiful and static content uses little CPU power to serve. On the client side, it will make a minor difference to the avatar load times for those on slower connections - that would be mitigated by client-side cache for images and decent connection speeds to a point where it simply wouldn't matter.
There are no
technical reasons for the current avatar (and, for that matter, signature) size restrictions; there are only historical and aesthetic ones. Those dimensions have worked well in the past, and generally still fulfill their purpose - providing you with enough space to display something memorable without dwarfing the post content itself. We also like to think we're special enough for people to bother with getting custom avatars to use here (and, as people have pointed out, there is a board or two where you could get help doing just that).
[On the whole, technical limitations are overstated, and we like our current policies. Thread hijack over, promise!]