If you want an avatar -- a picture associated with your messages and member profile, such as many of our members have - we're glad to help you. Here's how to get one.

Our Forum has some ready-made avatars for you to choose from. Click on the "MySpace" tab at the top of the Categories and Forums list: select "Profiles", and in the popup window that then appears, scroll down to "Edit avatar". When you select that link, a window will pop up to show you the available images. Choose one by clicking on it: then click on "Select this one", and after that, scroll to the bottom of the page and hit the "Submit" button.

If you want a custom avatar, that's great too! The rules for custom avatars are as follows:

• The only permitted graphics file formats are .BMP, .PNG, .GIF and .JPG. Files in the .SWF format are explicitly not permitted and will be destroyed on sight.
• The maximum avatar size in our forums is 100 pixels by 100 pixels. (This is the standard LiveJournal size.) For the time being we allow animated icons, but if bandwidth costs start to run too high, permission for the animated ones will be withdrawn. (Please remember that the cost of running the discussion forums is borne by DD personally, not by her publisher!) If you need to reduce the size of your desired avatar and don't know how, our staff will be glad to help you. E-mail Lee at
  

  and she'll resize your artwork for you.

• We are presently allowing members to link to avatars on other sites, permitted they have the site owners' permission to do so. Do not hotlink to other sites without their permission: if we get complaints from other sites about this, we will ban the offending user from having an icon at all.
• Avatars using copyrighted material should not be used except with the written permission of the copyright owner.
• Be appropriate in your choice of avatar! If your avatar offends Forum administration or other Forum members, it will be removed, as will your right to have an avatar: the bans may be temporary or permanent, depending on Forum administration's opinion.

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