Ask HN: Why HN doesn't allow using Avatars?

[artur_makly]

JsgsavaMzs123

wifi 0142916056

I just feel it would really humanize all of our coversations, and I bet even improve them by removing the venner if anonymity.

This "personification" if you will, was proven to reduce immorality in a clever E-signature vs hand signature test ( covered in this article : http://m.fastcompany.com/3050961/evidence/is-your-e-signature-making-you-a-liar )

[rprospero]

I find that the lack of avatars improves the conversation, specifically because it slightly increases anonymity. On sites with avatars, I tend to use the avatars to filter out people that I consider idiots. When I read Hacker News, I mostly ignore the user names and just read the posts.

The result has been that I tend to do a better job of judging HN contents by their merit than by their origin. At least twice a year, I'll read a very insightful post, become curious about the author, and discovered that it was someone that I had previously thought was an idiot. I've taken two lessons from this

1) I'm a terrible judge of character.

2) Focusing on content over personality improves the quality of the discussion.

[ac2u]

Not that I have a survey, but I'd imagine most users would be against on the grounds of it distracting us from substance of someone's points and arguments.

We're all influenced in some degree by visual bias, and not always consciously, whether we like it or not.

[J_Darnley]

If I use a pseudonym and any avatar that doesn't show me what's the difference?

Not to mention that it would then require this site to store thousands of images, serve thousands of image, check thousands of images for "bad content".

This is starting to smell. Are you being paid when people visit that link? [EDIT] A handy archive for others https://archive.is/DErFm

[kleer001]

A user name is enough for me to humanize OP and and conversation partners.

Also, to me, avatars would mar the clean look.

I could even do without the beige and orange page colors and that nice capital Y logo image. Totally B&W HN? Sure, no worries.

The fading away of downvoted comments is nice. So, maybe greyscale in the end.