[OpenID] Profile image sizes

Chris Messina chris.messina at gmail.com
Sat Apr 21 22:08:03 PDT 2007


I was excited about Pavatar when it first came out, but have quickly
moved against it. Adding more data that should be visible data to the
head of a document is not a wise solution, nor is inventing a new term
like "pavatar" OR picking arbitrary image dimensions for no apparent
reason.

SO, here's what I recommend:

* Inherit as much as you can from the vcard standard. It's already
been figured out, and with hcard, has been converted to an
HTML-format.
* Push a naming convention like http://tld.com/avatar.jpg just like
http://tld.com/favicon.ico is the standard for Favicons.
* DO look for images with class="photo" within an hcard for the
location of the avatar:

http://factoryjoe.com/hcard.html

* DO allow for larger sizes than 80x80. That size is practically an
allowable square of dead pixels on 30" screens.
* I would much prefer that we push for a standard on the order of
256px or 512px (the size of Leopard icons). If you think of the
standard that you're talking about becoming as ubiquitous as the
Favicon, you should choose the design pattern you promote wisely. It's
about time we had higher fidelity avatars -- with the possibility of
doing server-side transformations to various sizes in between for
different purposes:

avatar.jpg (original, 512x512)
avatar_256.jpg
avatar_128.jpg
avatar_48.jpg
avatar_32.jpg
avatar_16.jpg

Thoughts?

Chris

On 4/20/07, Recordon, David <drecordon at verisign.com> wrote:
> Sounds like they're trying to work through how to best deal with other
> sizes.  In any case, I think it would work pretty well for a lot of the
> use cases where avatar exchange is needed right now.  Certainly not the
> most robust option, but seems reasonable to support especially once they
> work out the multi-size issue.
>
> --David
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: general-bounces at openid.net [mailto:general-bounces at openid.net] On
> Behalf Of Scott Kveton
> Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 7:52 AM
> To: general at openid.net
> Subject: Re: [OpenID] Profile image sizes
>
> I looked at pavatar when it first came out and forwarded it to some
> folks ... If you look at the forums there are some discussions about
> limitations with it and I'm not sure if they ever got worked out.  Not
> trying to shoot this down, just thought I would mention it ... It is the
> only decentralized avatar proposal I've seen.
>
> - Scott
>
>
>
>
> > Hi John,
> >
> > Interesting. Yes, very much so.
> >
> > They propose : "80x80 px in either PNG, JPG or GIF format" upload and
> > using |<link rel="pavatar"
> href="http://example.com/path/my-pavatar.png"
> > />| to access it.
> >
> > We will therefore go with this:
> >
> > <link rel="openid.server"
> > href="http://barnraiser.info/index.php/serve">
> > <link rel="openid.delegate" href="http://tom.barnraiser.info/">
> > |<link rel="pavatar"
> > |href="|http://tom.barnraiser.info/|my-pavatar.png" />|
> >
> >
> > ...unless anyone else know of a better way.
> >
> > Thanks very much for the info!
> >
> > tom
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > John wrote:
> >> Something like pavatars? http://www.pavatar.com/
> >>
> >> tom wrote:
> >>> Hi All,
> >>>
> >>> We are about to add an image upload function to our OpenID server so
>
> >>> that we can serve a thumbnail image for adding against a posting.
> >>> Has there been any discussions on having a standard set of
> >>> guidelines / recommendations for sizes for thumbnail images (similar
>
> >>> to a standard passport sized photo)?
> >>>
> >>> Many thanks in advance,
> >>>
> >>> tom
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> general mailing list
> >>> general at openid.net
> >>> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/general
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > general mailing list
> > general at openid.net
> > http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/general
> >
>
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-- 
Chris Messina
Citizen Provocateur &
  Open Source Ambassador-at-Large
Work: http://citizenagency.com
Blog: http://factoryjoe.com/blog
Cell: 412 225-1051
Skype: factoryjoe
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