How many of these concerns remain if the Forum’s “norm” is to use a non-photographic image?
This lets you have a bit more color/warmth without bringing anyone’s “looks” into play. And it gives people a bit more ability to express personality without worrying about what people think of their haircut/clothes/vibe.
I ask because it’s my strong preference not to use photos of myself in digital settings unless I’m forced to do so, but I enjoy non-photographic profile images in the context of e.g. Twitter, Reddit, and Goodreads.
Of course, we’d probably end up with a site where some people use photos and others don’t, but I think this is a much better arrangement than “everyone is encouraged to use photos”.
(In a practical sense, some of the people who have told me the Forum feels a bit cold and unwelcoming to them are people whose contributions seem extremely valuable to me, though of course that doesn’t say much about the average value of a counterfactual contribution from any given person who spends more time here because it feels warmer.)
You don’t see profile pictures on journal articles, or court documents, or computer code.
Profile pictures are common on Github, but that’s pedantic; I acknowledge your larger point.
More to the point, a lot of the places where journal articles and the like actually reach bigger audiences in communities like ours — blog comments, Twitter — use profile pictures. Do you think “academic Twitter” and Substack and the old SSC comment section would be/would have been better without profile pictures? (I don’t have a strong intuition either way, as I always process profile photos in those contexts as “fun decoration” rather than “social relationships”.)
How many of these concerns remain if the Forum’s “norm” is to use a non-photographic image?
This lets you have a bit more color/warmth without bringing anyone’s “looks” into play. And it gives people a bit more ability to express personality without worrying about what people think of their haircut/clothes/vibe.
I ask because it’s my strong preference not to use photos of myself in digital settings unless I’m forced to do so, but I enjoy non-photographic profile images in the context of e.g. Twitter, Reddit, and Goodreads.
Of course, we’d probably end up with a site where some people use photos and others don’t, but I think this is a much better arrangement than “everyone is encouraged to use photos”.
(In a practical sense, some of the people who have told me the Forum feels a bit cold and unwelcoming to them are people whose contributions seem extremely valuable to me, though of course that doesn’t say much about the average value of a counterfactual contribution from any given person who spends more time here because it feels warmer.)
Profile pictures are common on Github, but that’s pedantic; I acknowledge your larger point.
More to the point, a lot of the places where journal articles and the like actually reach bigger audiences in communities like ours — blog comments, Twitter — use profile pictures. Do you think “academic Twitter” and Substack and the old SSC comment section would be/would have been better without profile pictures? (I don’t have a strong intuition either way, as I always process profile photos in those contexts as “fun decoration” rather than “social relationships”.)