People and userpics

[pne]

Some users I see commenting often in communities I read I associate fairly closely with their userpics.

When they change their username, I'll think of the old one whenever I see their icon (e.g. madcaptenor will probably always be "izzycat" to me, at least as long as the default userpic stays the same), and if they change their default userpic, I'll be a tad sad whenever I see them post but not with "their" pic.

...which makes me wonder whether people are like that with me, too. I can certainly imagine that there are people who associate "pne" with my Martin userpic, since that was the first userpic I ever uploaded, it's been my default nearly all the time, and I post (at least comments) with other userpics comparatively rarely.

Comments

[ifeedformula.livejournal.com]

What do you do when people (like myself) constantly change their default userpic?

[pne.livejournal.com]

I don't know - it seems to be on a case-by-case basis how "attracted" I am to people's userpics. Some people I don't look at the userpics much, others I just look at the userpic and know, and many commenters in large communities I don't know anyway.

Usually, people whom I know but who tend to change userpics I just don't form this connection, so I'll go more by username (which is what I have to do anyway if I don't recognise the userpics).

...then there are the popular userpics which several people have. Those tend to confuse me if someone I "know" (whom I come across a lot, whether I know them or not) has a certain userpic but then I see someone else with that pic and I keep thinking it's the person I know best.

[pne.livejournal.com]

...and I just confused myself reading that comment, since I thought it was opal1159 who had posted it.

Even though I should have known I just posted it less than ten minutes ago, purposefully picking out my "confuse people with icon fixations into thinking it's Opal" userpic. (For reference here's her default userpic:
)

I hate it when that happens :)

[ifeedformula.livejournal.com]

Bwahaha.

[pthalo]

I parsed that as your martian userpic and got rather confused, because I don'T remember you ever having a martian userpic and thought it was before my time. But then I understood.

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

I associate you with the Martin user pic. I almost expect you to look like it in real life.

[otana.livejournal.com]

Definitely. I tend to recognize userpics over names. If I see people using userpics I made, I do a double take and wonder if I was writing comments in my sleep before I realize it's a totally different person.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I've even started using it on places where others typically use a picture of themselves, such as Facebook or Flickr, as a profile icon -- hoping for the "brand recognition", I suppose, so that people looking for "Philip Newton" will know they've found the right one.

[nitaq.livejournal.com]

I think I kind of associate you with that picture, but since I know you IRL, and that before LJ, I don't think you look like it. ;)
I always enjoy your other userpics, especially the geeky ones (if I get them, that is).

[nyssa.livejournal.com]

I definitely associate some people with their icons. I mean, I associate you with the Martin one. The few times I've seen you post under a different icon, I get confused.

I change my default icon to match my LJ layout, and I very rarely use it anywhere else on the site (unless I just need to post the comment right now and don't feel I have the time to pick another one). So I guess I probably end up not being associated with an icon to most people.

(Also, LJ is being very uncooperative and taking forever to post comments. :( What's with that?)

[lt-black-fire.livejournal.com]

I do associate people with their userpics, and I get confused if/when they change. It is nice to see a familiar userpic and know who posted something or who replied to a post. I get sad if people abandon nice, unique userpics for something less quirky. It takes me quite some time to get used to new userpics, and I always like to see old, familiar ones - they are somehow reassuring.

I don't know how much sense I'm making tonight - not too much, I fear.

[opal1159.livejournal.com]

Ha! I was going to say something about that but you saved me the trouble.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I change my default icon to match my LJ layout

Hee -- that reminds me of how I'm always a bit amused when someone proudly exclaims that they have a new layout, because I nearly never see people's layouts -- I read their entries through my friends page rather than through their journal, and my friends page shows comment links with ?style=mine so I don't even see comment pages in their journal style.

So I guess I probably end up not being associated with an icon to most people.

Yeah -- but it does work a little the other way around; there are a couple of your userpics that I associate with you when I see them (e.g. the "notes" one and the "gloomy" one).

[nyssa.livejournal.com]

Argh, I always hate when peoples' layouts take over the comment page too, mostly because then I get really confused. I much prefer when comment pages are in the default LJ layout.

Unfortunately, due to the high number of icons I'm beginning to amass, and the relatively little care with which I choose my icons each time I comment, certain icons get neglected a lot, including the notes one. I don't think I've used that one in ages. The Gloomy one, however, gets used relatively often due to the fact that it is just above my Goomba one (which is the icon that gets selected when I simply hit "page down" after highlighting my first icon in the dropdown menu).

[pne.livejournal.com]

Argh, I always hate when peoples' layouts take over the comment page too,

Same. When custom comment pages started coming out was about the time where I added ?style=mine to the links on my friends page. I'm used to seeing comment pages in site scheme.

mostly because then I get really confused.

I sometimes get confused, too, especially if they've given their "read comments" and "post comments" link cutesy names.

Also, some of those pages I find very hard to read because of the fonts and/or colours the owner chose.

Plus the threading is sometimes hard to follow (who replied to whom) -- I'm used to the way things work with site-scheme comment pages, so if comments are arranged in novel and different ways it makes it harder for me to read.

Finally, some people have very narrow comment pages, which works badly once you've got several levels of nested comments.

I'm glad there's ?style=mine. If people want to read my comment pages in their journal layout, that's fine with me, too. Let everyone use what they're familiar with.

certain icons get neglected a lot, including the notes one. I don't think I've used that one in ages.

I think I associate that one with you because it was your default for a while.

[nyssa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the notes icon was my default for about a year and a half, when I had the pink and blue scheme. This is my default now.

My housemate has a Livejournal, and her comments page is really hard for me to understand. It nests them, yeah, but it indents (the bar with the username and icon) from the right, and not the left. I've been so trained to look for the threading on the left that I keep getting really confused when comments like, "Yes, I agree!" are posted apparently unprovoked. Very confusing.

I'd like to think that my Livejournal layout, if I were to customise the comments pages, would be clear enough to still use. ;) I try to keep my colour schemes and fonts very simple.

[denial-land.livejournal.com]

Definitely Martin. I have a horrible icon fixation and get confused whenever people change their too often. Thus, I personally change my default mayyybe every other year or so.
Maybe it's related to my mild case of self-diagnosed prosopagnosia, *shrug*

[afuna]

I definitely associate you with your Martin userpic (that's the green duck/platypus, right?) -- so much so that I was very confused when I saw your other journal with a similar icon open a support request!

(I am much the same about my default userpic. It wasn't my first userpic ever, but it's been my default since the day I uploaded it, and I rarely bother to change it when posting entries and comments.)

[pne.livejournal.com]

your Martin userpic (that's the green duck/platypus, right?)

Indeed it is.