Shamus Young is the most dangerous sort of guy, with lots of ideas and the time and energy to implement them. He first came to my attention several years ago with The Lemon. Later there was The DM of the Rings. Currently he is one of the parties responsible for Chainmail Bikini. His most recent effort is a WordPress plugin, “Wavatars,” which I’ve installed here. If you leave a comment, your name will be accompanied by an eighty-pixel-square avatar determined by your email address. (If you have a Gravatar, as I do, that’s what you will see instead.) On a weblog like mine where comments are infrequent, these are just a cute novelty, but on sites where comment threads get lengthy, these could be useful for keeping the various writers straight.
If you like the idea but want something a little more macabre for your own site, consider MonsterID. (Via Aziz.)
I would love to see mine, but I’ll only see my gravatar on this … and your system is not allowing me to change my identity (I thought I might try commenting with another address). But it does seem to be registering the wavatars on old comments. The chain you have on your Dec. 11 post is nicely illustrative.
–Robin (same old)
Glad you like it! 🙂
Okay, I’ll bite.
By rights there should be at least one Wavatar in these comments, and I don’t have a Gravatar. 🙂
Ok, I’ll give it a go.