Due to privacy concerns with Gravatar, we have decided to add an option in the settings for users to opt in or out of Gravatar. While Gravatar is a useful service, it enables them to be able to track your internet use.
All users have now been opted out of Gravatar. If you’ve been using an avatar from Gravatar until now, you’ll notice your profile pic has changed to a default durtle pic. If you would like to go back to using your avatar from Gravatar, go to the Account Settings page and opt in by selecting “Yes”.
Q: Does the Gravatar setting affect my avatar on the Community Board?
A: No, it does not. The avatar displayed and managed on the WaniKani app is completely separate from the Community Board, which has its own settings and management. The Community Board does let you use Gravatar if you opt in, but this is an option exclusively for the Community Board.
To be honest, I was never keen on the idea of using a third party site for user profile pictures. The security concerns of Gravatar’s site confirms my suspicions of why I felt it was a bad idea to begin with.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I’m a lot more conscious of these things nowadays so I went and deleted my gravatar account too. It’s not like it really does much for me anyway. I literally only started using it because of WaniKani.
This sadly is the state of many internet companies. Disqus is another one similar to this, and we all know big daddy Google and Facebook are really trojan horses.
The question of the usefulness of the WaniKani avatar should be asked anyway. Do we really need it? Why not disable the avatar feature altogether (I’m talking about the WK app and not the forum)?
For the website, I use a more studious picture haha, while on the forums I use one that just makes me happy! I totally get allowing users to turn the feature off if they don’t use or like it, but there’s no reason to remove it for the users that do, is there?
I’m just confused why people are asking for the removal of a perfectly good feature just because they don’t personally enjoy it? If it doesn’t bother you at all and takes zero seconds to just not go out of your way to use… Then just don’t give it another thought? There’s no need to ask for its removal, because I guarantee someone out there is enjoying it even if you couldn’t care less.
And also, I think this change is a good one. Not one that personally affects me, but any change that gives the end user more options without forcing anybody to change their workflow is a win in my book.
The avatars exist because the community forum was integrated with the WK app before we moved onto Discourse, and there are also public user profile pages.
An option to also opt out of avatar would be nice, so that I don’t have to see the Durtle. Not sure what would then be on the top-right – maybe just a cog icon
ㅤ 
