Get Your Gravatar
I have heard a few questions relating to the avatar’s that are displayed next to the comments ong the blog. Well here is your chance to show your personality and make your mark on the AGP.
Simple process. Take a left out of here and turn right at the old factory, just watch the dip in the road after the corner shop. But you should find yourself looking at Gravatar. The service is run by the same dudes that do WordPress, so you will notice it looks familiar. Gravatar stands for Globally Recognized Avatars.
Click sign up. Now here is the important bit. Enter the email address that you use for blog comments, but make sure that you use a real one, your account needs to be verified via email.
After that follow the prompts and upload your image to associate with that email address. There is a resizing tool that works well, even on large images.
Now every time you comment on a Gravatar enabled blog you use that email address and just like magic the image that you uploaded will appear next to your comment. That is going to be a lot of blogs since version 2.5 of WordPress Gravatar has been built in.
You can also associate different email addresses into the same master account and they can all have different images. So if you use one email on one site and you want X image to show there and something else on another blog and that has Y image; you can.
Now for the me@private among us, you are in a bit of a fix. Because you need to use a real email address. The reason being is that for every email you associate, it has to be verified. They also send you forgotten password resets to the master or primary address you gave. So unless you know a service that can customize an exploding inbox that will accept a reply once, your buggered. So Herne, you might get the default Gravatar.
But I can say that the service works well and is fun and a nice addition to your comments. So AGP people, it would be great to have everyone looking their best.
Oh and one last thing, once you have signed up. Every comment that you have ever put on a blog that has enabled Gravatars and you used the same email address will be updated with your new Gravatar. Which is very cool.
"I Want To Be a Celebrity"
Buy at 
Woot, first…
Ha testing my Gravatar…
See, I have a problem with “services” that insist that you sign up for them… The reason they want you to sign up is so they can (a) send you crap, and (b) sell your address to other people so they can send you crap.
If someone has a legitimate service, I might sign up for it, but if you’re just selling me a fancy avatar then I’ll have to seriously think about it. And privacy policies that say, “We will never rent, sell, or otherwise distribute or make public your email address. We hate spam as much as you do.” is a bunch of BS.
Keep in mind with Gravatar that it is run by Automattic the same crew that own & run WordPress and WordPress.com. Im my opinion at least, it provides them a but of extra credibility. And the sign-up sheet is your email address only, which is so they can tie an avatar to that email address.
My opinion: Gravatar sucks! I attempted to signup a few days ago, it kept telling me my email was in use. Now I had never heard of Gravatar before, therefore I have never entered my email address there! Right, so I click “forgot my password” and it sends me a “password reset” email. I click the link within this email, and it sends me to a Gravatar link to “enter a new password”. So I did, then click “save” or whatever it said. Then….”Error” - then it goes on about i can report this error and all this junk. So each time I want to access “my” account, I have to request new password, click the link within, which is automatically logged in, on Gravatar!
Grrr!
First of all Herne: I have to agree with Keith here mate. Autmattic have a very very good reputation and can be trusted. They are one of the few companies that I use my personal - private email with. Your wrong in thinking that they would want your address to send you stuff or sell you anything - it is not worth it. Secondly I’ll add that you can not have your cake and eat it too - if you want to be a part of using these services then you can not (generally) do it anon. Why not create a gmail account and use it for your “public” persona - this is what I do and I can tell you my davetherooster email is everywhere! I get buggerall spam and Gmail’s spam filtering is one of the best for a web based email solution - hands down. Why not get a “meprivate[at]gmail.com” with Google? There are solutions Herne and you can retain your privacy.
@Doug: Have you ever registered for a WordPress.com blog? If so then this will say “in use”. Otherwise I would shoot the guys an email and ask them what the go is. I think you’ll find that they can sort that for you np.
Gotta say that this is the first problem that anyone I know has had with Gravatar. Bummer. If you need any more help with that let me know - I might be able to contact someone that can help you. My ppl can talk to their ppl and their ppl can fix it for my ppl.
Hey guys,
First post here, just to say I had no issues signing up (after I realised I could use my wordpress account username). I’ve had no issues with spam/junk sent to addresses I’ve used (and created specifically) for wordpress, so I’m also more inclined to trust them not to send the data on to third party advertisers/marketers.
Ok… On the advice of Dave I have entered a newly created private email address into this silly thing. Now I just need to log in to gmail and lock it out…
Herne, why not keep it? Use it for stuff like this. You often need a legit email account for stuff. Plus why not on behalf of the AGP use it for nothing else. Then you can make it an experiment and see if you do indeed get spammed by the services that you sign up for?
Welcome @atmo thanks for throwing your opinion in. I have to agree with you about the WordPress thing - they don’t make it very clear the relationship and/or the implications of changing your avatar/gravatar let alone what the heck is going on.
Me I entered my gmail address and it said “in use” I went wtf? But then I remembered that I signed up for a WP blog just to get an API key (I trashed the blog and forgot about it). Then after realizing what the go was - used the same email I use for my WordPress blog and presto, all worked the way it should.
Then I dragged in my gmail address and associated it with that master account. Easy. But they need to make it clearer.
Testing my gravatar…
I am testing. Did not see it pop up on the site but I see it the editor. hrm? Maybe it’s just slow?