Avatar or Image

[jamesray50]

This is a stupid question, but what is the difference between an avatar and image in the profile setting?

[Spider]

An avatar is an image - it's just a specific kind of image - an image that represents you.

(It's also a clever way of sounding techy and futuristic!)

[Harold Mansfield]

Like Frederick said, an Avatar is a type of image that is used as a representation of a person. The image in my profile area would be considered an Avatar. It's like a substitution for a profile picture, or visual representation of things like personal hobbies, gaming, profession, charitable causes, pretty much anything that you want to use an image to say.

If you have ever gone to a gaming forum, you will see that people use game characters as their avatar.
If you go to a pet forum, people may use pictures of their pets as Avatars.

There is a universal system of Avatars on the web called Gravatars. (http://en.gravatar.com/) (Globally Recognized Avatars).

If you have ever seen reader comments or user profiles on blogs and other websites where the respondent has a profile picture next to them, that is likely based on the Gravatar system, where you can associate your email address with a corresponding image that is auto populated where ever you sign in with that email address.

Wordpress and many other publishing platforms recognize the Gravatar system.

[vangogh]

I think what Jo Ellen is asking is why are there options for an avatar and also a profile image. The avatar is the one you see here on posts. The profile image is one that only shows on your profile page. Why the option exists to have them be different I'm not sure. Maybe so you could use a company logo or similar on your profile and yet still use your chosen friendlier image in your posts. I think most people keep the two the same, but I can see where you might want to use different images for each.