| From: Ian Allen (the Lab) | 11/02/99
22:17:21 |
| Subject: Avatars explained | post id:
1013 |
| The term Avatar is meant
in the sense of 'guide' rather than 'deity'. We all know how Dr Karl has a great deal of respect for people who put in the hard yards to discover scientific knowledge. He has even greater respect for the few who take the trouble and effort to share that hard-won knowledge with the rest of us. One day last year I was chatting to him and he made a remark about how a small number of people seemed to be making quite extraordinary contributions to this forum. He didn't necessarily agree with everything they said, but he always found them interesting and worth reading. Anyway, when we introduced the new format, I thought it might be good to provide some way for everybody to easily locate messages from the people Karl had mentioned - hence the idea of messages in the left pane with the authors name in red. We also needed some shorthand way to describe these people. What should we call them? The words 'awesome', 'knowledgeable' and 'guide' came to mind. It was only a short step from there before the word 'Avatar' popped into my head. (Blame me for this, not Karl). Who decides who gets to be an Avatar? The final say on this question is entirely with Dr Karl. Re-read this message for ideas on how to convince him. | |