Where did all the avatars go?

The more technically astute forum members may have already figured out that http://www.gravatar.com/ is the place to go in order to get a ROOL forum avatar that differs from the default “G” icon.

Recently I noticed that my avatar had been reset and that others seemed to have acquired black backgrounds. It turns out that Gravatar have merged with WordPress and seem to have lost or damaged some of their user accounts in the process.

If you’re worried about privacy issues you may not want to update your gravatar. Your log-in details for the Gravatar site now double up as WordPress login credentials. Neither WordPress nor Gravatar seem to enforce HTTPS for logging in, so your login details are sent in the clear – this might allow someone to capture them and then either run a blog in your name, or hijack your blog using those credentials. It’s a long shot in practice, but the risk is there.

If you’re not worried about the WordPress stuff and just want to fix your avatar:

• Visit http://www.gravatar.com/
• Log in, or use the password reset form if necessary
• It’ll ask you for a user name probably – it says this is important, but that’s only really true if you might use WordPress
• Add a new image to your Gravatar account and make sure you assign it the “G” rating (i.e. it’s globally available, even for ratings below “PG”)
• You can then delete the old one
• If you use the “check avatar” link in your account you’ll be told that it may take 5 to 10 minutes for the new avatar to show up – and they’re not kidding, it took at least that long for me.

After jumping through the hoops I’ve got my own avatar back again – hopefully it’ll stay intact this time.