Some days ago the avatars on my whatsapp changed from squares to circles.
I don’t like such change and like better the squares.
Now I see the same change has taken place on avatars at the Reflector.
I guess this change will extend to all avatars everywhere no matter the application or program and I wonder why.
Who knows why?
Is it because someone decided it’s cooler this way?
Is it because the circles take up less memory in the servers?
Have you all noticed this change?
I had the change on my whatsapp but not everybody had it at the same time.
Thanks in advance for your comments/opinions.
Best 73 de Guru.
Had not noticed till you mentioned it 
Thinks there better square do agree with you there.
Karl
I don’t know why, but my avatar does not work as a circle since it gets cropped.
I couldn’t find anything in preferences to change it back either.
Would a member of the MT please explain what happened and unless there is a very good reason for the change please revert to square avatars.
73, Colin
Its happened in a lot of places - apparently it is cool to have it round. Still square on Wordpress but if I update my avatar on here with my square one from Wordpress it turns out round.
Some will look ok some won’t - like yours Colin. Some will like it some won’t.
Changes, always changes, and someone gets paid mega bucks to think of something stupid to do.
73 Neil
I don’t think it is anything to do with us, Colin. Since I never bother with avatars anyway it doesn’t bother me, I don’t claim to be a Hindu deity descended to Earth!
Brian
The (apparently inline) CSS has sprung a “border-radius: 50%;” statement. Other sites elsewhere have also caught it. It’s spreading…
It was a system change that the system developers simply rolled out. I have added some css to change it back. What is the general opinion? Square or round?
Edit: They have also changed the Admin shield symbol so now instead Brian becomes G8AD… and I have become G0CQ…
1 Like
Cheers! The SOTA logo doesn’t look good in a circle either… Square works for me. 
Thanks Jim, much better!
I’ve always been a little square HI. Square gets my vote, don’t you just hate it when someone roles out a change without forewarning people!
Ed.
Some images will be better round, others square, an option would be good (can I have an octagon, please?) 
Brian
It has been discussed for a few weeks here:
I’ve not seen any round ones, but I think I’d prefer square.
Stewart
[quote=“G0CQK, post:12, topic:10990”]rounded avatars in the topic list[/quote]I can sort-of see his point in that very specific single instance. In other places, not so much. Most places they’d only work as round if they’ve been designed to be round, and if they’ve been designed to be round then the maker could quite easily make them round without needing roundness imposed on all the square ones.
Edit: avatar modified (temporarily, I expect, and it may take a while to filter through) to illustrate that last point…
Actually, from the point of view of composition, square is the hardest format to do well. Remember the old instamatic cameras before digital changed everything? How nearly everybody produced such terrible photos full of sky and foreground, or with the edges of groups cut off?
It is a matter of matching the format to the image - round would be excellent for portraits but for a landscape it would be difficult to control the framing and lead the eye into the scene in a controlled manner. Still, its just avatars, and who really looks at them other than their owners?
Brian
The square “head shot” avatars were actually easy to recognsise. The round M0LEP is very difficult to read. Shortening the usernames so G8ADD becomes G8AD… is terrible.
[quote=“MM0FMF, post:16, topic:10990”]The round M0LEP is very difficult to read.[/quote]Partly because I’m not much good at cooking up graphics, and partly because I made it in a hurry just to prove a point. (Edit: …and again for the sake of readability, 'cos the previous one was really rubbish…)
[quote=“G8ADD, post:15, topic:10990”]who really looks at them[/quote]Closely, probably nobody, at least not when they’re presented at the sort of scale this board uses, but the patterns often become recognisable to the point where reading the ID is unnecessary.
Until someone goes and changes their avatar, that is…
I like square ones! Mine is made to be displayed in a square 
Not really sota or rf related but is part of what i do every day