Gravatars Enabled

Sort of sounds like a line from a Gerry Anderson Supermarionation show: “Gravatars Enable!”

Generic GravatarMovement Point has turned on support for gravatars (Globally Recognized Avatars, though their globality relies on blog sites enabling the service). The notion behind the gravatar is to have an avatar that follows you from site to site as you leave comments, to create some semblance of continuity. People with shared interests tend to visit similar sites, so seeing a familiar comment avatar should help create a sense of community in the otherwise anonymous ether.

Gravatars are keyed to the e-mail address required for commenting at most blogs, though rest assured that said addresses are never displayed here at Movement Point. People without a gravatar account have a generic avatar, like the one above.

I like the notion of a single avatar for multiple sites and services. Establishing a “reputation” online is not as simple as establishing a persistent avatar (especially since you can change your gravatar at will), but any steps in the direction of accountability and defined identity online are good steps.

WordPress, the blog engine behind Movement Point, has one-click gravatar support, so it wasn’t hugely difficult to turn it on. Hardest part is figuring out what avatar you want to represent yourself everywhere

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