Avatars are used so you can easily tell who is who by the image they have under their name, since these forum tables aren't so great it's hard to read the name so avatars are needed.
Agreed, the forums have an overall BLAH look to them right now. And until then we are in
need of avatars. I also think we should get avatars free of charge; only having to pay minerals for avatars you offer on the site. I'm fine with having to pay for sigs... I suppose.
I don't want noobs spamming the dldb for minerals
Of course not, but you shouldn't want noobs spamming the forums for them either (although it's not as bad). We need more moderation... soon.
So you don't (or at least, shouldn't) get minerals in Null, but you do in Games, Discussion Forums, Map Making Progress, Map Making help etc. And if the greatest map makers don't post a lot, well I doubt signatures are a big deal for them
I thought that null gave no minerals already? If not, that needs to be fixed. The Null Forum has nothing but spam, essentially. It deserves no minerals for any posting. As for the rest of it, perhaps give more minerals to activity in mapmaking forums than other off-topic ones. Like... I don't know how it works now, but for instance, +1 minerals for off-topic post, +2 for a mapmaking post.
Before I go, I would also like to say I'm stunned no one realized we had the "disable fun" feature, seeing as how it was front and center on the front page for so long. People should be more obliged to keep up with the community and news if they want to have the privilege of using the site, and spamming it for minerals in some cases. (this isn't refering to anyone specifically in this thread, you may have you own reasons for not having seen it) If I spent more time posting everywhere instead of keeping up with the community developments, I'd be a lot better off in minerals, which is obviously wrong. Too bad there isn't much that can be done about that. It might be good to
consider a correspendace between how many minerals are given for a post and how long the post is, if that isn't done already.
Also, don't expect posting to forever be the only viable way to get minerals. That's going to change in the future.
This is of utter importance.
Other than that, I'll say that I could give a shit about magic boxes.
None.