At the moment as each person joins I am setting up the appropriate NFL helmet as their avatar, with pending coaches having a question mark.
If you would like a different picture just let me know(e.g. if you would like to have a portrait of yourself there instead), we can sort something out with you emailing it to me if nessessary.
I think having your helmet visible and signing off with your name helps people remember who is who, I am a shocker for remember which name goes with which team usually.

An avatar is your pictoral representation, a way to give yourself an identity and they are commonly used on forums to help people remember each other, often people will put alot of effort into choosing a picture that represents their personality or interests to help strangers know them better, get a clear first impression of the person or whatever.

Here however we all know each other fairly well (for am internet forum anyway) so we use the avatar for our NFLAY team helmet so new members can learn people's identities better.

With the newer advent of NFLAY signature panels which indicate the coaches name and team thw avatar has become redundant in this function and reduced to aesthetics as they were originally designed.  

--Last edited by ALEX on 2005-12-13 01:59:05 --

Helmets are a winner.