Do not modify avatars without consent of owner

[Jest Phulin]

Last year there was an ... issue ... with avatars of club members being modified (by placing an overlay on them) without the consent of the owner.

As the season is approaching in which that happened, I am requesting that the overlay not be changed without the avatar owner's consent, or for the owner to have a method to opt out of the change. Certain overlays imply the owner agrees and supports certain views outside of supporting BGA in general. I do not want people to look at my avatar and believe that I support something I don't.

If more clarification on the specific issue triggering this request is needed, I will provide it.

Thank you.

[N_Faker]

https://en.boardgamearena.com/#!prefere ... ion=avatar

Disabling the overlay is trivial.

[Jest Phulin]

I would like to have my avatar indicate that I support BGA, but no other messages. But, yes, thank you for pointing out there is a form of an opt-out available.

[N_Faker]

I'm not sure what the issue is here.

Is your only gripe with the BGA premium member overlay, that it is enabled by default?

What other messages are you referring to?

[Liallan]

I vaguely remember something about this. Perhaps there are supporters who would prefer remain anonymous? (I personally don't care but I do think people have that right.)

[Jest Phulin]

OK, I guess I was too vague.

Last year, the banner was changed to a Christmas hat. To someone viewing my avatar, this indicated that I celebrated that holiday. It is a Christian holiday. Therefore, by extension, it indicated that I was Christian or at least supported that religion. Support of BGA should not indicate support of a specific religion (unless it is obvious that BGA admins are strongly pushing for that). I am trying to avoid that indication of support this year.

And, if you want to search for the thread that discussed this last year, feel free. Most of the counter-arguments were that Christmas was not really considered a Christian holiday in France, where BGA is based. It is considered one in the United States, though, and a significant portion of the BGA population is from there.

[N_Faker]

Christmas originated from Christianity, so there are ties.
Though, it is really more of a 'commercial' holiday for most, I would expect.
This should be fine so long as you have the option to disable it, shouldn't it?

[qwertasdfg]

The thing is: there is no way to opt out.
Bugged me with those supporters badges so much that i stopped it. And i can understand when people hate the Christmas thingy as well.

Yes, you can opt out of seeing the badges for yourself. But you still know that others will see you with them. And, seriously, you choose your own avatar to be able to choose what others see you as. So the option to disable those yellow badges just for yourself is like saying you can't choose your own hair style anymore because you aren't forced to see it anyway

[N_Faker]

Excuse my ignorance.
I expected the option of disabling the overlay to actually remove it. Not just to obscure your own view of them.

This is annoying...

[Liallan]

Christmas originated from Christianity, so there are ties.
Though, it is really more of a 'commercial' holiday for most, I would expect.
This should be fine so long as you have the option to disable it, shouldn't it?

I agree. In fact, I have far more complaint with how dang commercial it is, cause no one cares about what the holiday is. They're too busy trying to see how much money they can spend, or how twinkly they can make their house.

But... I still think someone has the right to not want a Christmas hat. (It was probably a Santa Claus hat, which has diddly squat to do with Christianity, but whatever.) I wouldn't want a Christmas hat simply cause I wouldn't like it, and don't think anyone should dump a thing like that on anyone with asking, whether it's because they don't want to "appear as a Christian" or whatever other reason they have.

I'm a bit surprised that the opt-out is only so you don't see them, versus that yours goes away. Are we sure that's how it works? What I see on the link that N_Faker gave is about the star-banner thingie. It does have an option to "not see" them, which does seem to imply it's you not seeing other people's. But above that is a button that says "I want a star-banner thingie on my avatar." Do you not have to hit that for it to show? [EDIT: Never mind. That's just a thing asking to go Premium. I should've known.)