That little profile pic that shows up when you comment on blogs – Gravatar How to

How to get an avatar or profile pic to show up when you comment on other people’s blogs

Darned if it didn’t take me some serious searching to figure out how to get the little avatar or profile picture of me to show up in that little box when I make a comment on someone’s blog. One thing you learn in Facebook is that the blank face is not welcome. The first rule on Facebook is to show people who you are. There are probably 300 Peter DeMotts out there and there is one in New York who is no longer for this world who has hundreds of articles and links about his anti war protests in New York. When I make a comment somewhere or if someone sees me on Facebook, I want them to know that I am the Peter DeMott that is still alive and living in Germantown, Ohio and who is a portrait and equine photographer. I want them to know that I love photography and do on location senior portraits all around the greater Dayton, Ohio area. I also want them to know that I am not the anti war protester from New York.

So, I wanted to figure out how to load up that little box with MY PICTURE. I searched WordPress several times. Then I searched the word avatar and looked around. Of course I had to sift through many blogs and web news items about the block buster movie Avatar.

Finally I saw a post by a business blog about the GRAVATAR web site. Gravatar stands for Globally Recognized Avatars. To my surprise, they did not list the web site URL or any instructions about it. It was just a short news item.

Here is what I found when I got there:

Gravatar.com and WordPress.com share the same user database. It’s possible that you registered a WordPress.com account (either for a blog or for an Akismet API key,) which automatically now gives you a Gravatar.com account. If you use your WordPress.com password to log in you should experience no problems using Gravatar. If you cannot remember that password you may use the forgotten password link on the login page to reset your password.

Akismet is a great plugin that eliminates 99.999% of spam comment posts on your blog. If you don’t have that you will be sorting through junk comment posts by the hundreds every day. I had already loaded up Akismet and had gotten an API key, but I never had heard anything about Gravatars. So, once I found this site and logged in, I was able to quickly uploaded a profile pic or avatar and now, where ever I post a comment instead of the blank face avatar, it shows me (not the fellow from New York) and I have a camera in my hands. It was easy once I got my password and logged on. It took a couple of hours for the Gravatar to load up throughout the internet, but when I came back from doing some work outside… I saw some of my comments with my gravatar showing.

You would think that there would be places that explains this stuff, but  there really isn’t. It’s stuff that you pick up little pieces at a time. The one business site that talked about it provided no links or instructions at all. It just explained that you could do it…..How? please. Anyway, if you are wondering where and how, hopefully this post will find you so you too can load up a Globally Recognized Avatar so you will no longer be that blank face thing staring out from your comments.

Here is the GRAVATAR web site: http://en.gravatar.com/

This is me: at http://www.photosbypdemott.com living in Germantown, Ohio

This is NOT me: at http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/02/21-5 no longer living in New York, but who has very many news stories posted throughout the internet about his anit war activities, arrest and trial, incarceration, and recent death (2009).