It would be nice to see more members with avatars and profiles and Signatures.
Signatures really help when others read your post and can see a location of your plants  and give us an idea of what they can do in that climate that they are growing in, often i read a post with a beautiful plant and have no idea where it is grown.

Just click your name then in top right corner click edit, scroll down toward bottom and fine the word SIGNATURE, then just type in and it will appear each time you post on the bottom .

Avatars are no big deal but a nice added feature to use,  i have change mine in past to show each dog i own and plants as well .

Many become members and leave the profile empty.

Martin I second that motion. It's maddening sometime trying to figure out where a person is located. Maybe they're in a witness protection program, just kidding. Having a screen name is descriptive sometime but it's nice to see someone sign off with real name.

"gene"

Tom, this is pretty low budget, so what you see is what you get. ;-))

Good idea, Martin, and thanks for the info on how to add the signature!

Thanks...

I just never bothered to FIGure out how to do it.

~Chills

Just wanted to bumb this back to top

tried to post picture of my hometown, see how this goes? also zone. 

Maggie, try downsizing your picture a little as the bigger it is the resolution get bad.

The MOST important is the USA STATE (or country) PLUS the
usda zone. There are different states across America
having  more-or-less the same usda zone, BUT the local
climate is totally different from others, when it comes to fig...

Gorgi
I agree. I meant any indicator that would tell me how to compare my location with the location of the poster for both the summer and winter times. I mentioned hardiness zone for lack of (or remembering) the proper word.
It would have been so wonderful if we could list some indicator that would tell us 'the heat units available for a location over the growing period, average or total or whatever' which will help us compare the conditions in growing season.

I've tried to upload an avatar many times but it always says the pic exceeds the size limit of 48x48 pixels. It doesn't but the error persists.

Reduced my avatar to less than 48x48, still wont upload. Says image exceeds the size limits. Gave up.

Same problem as those above.

To add your avatar, try downloading your picture to a photo hosting site such as Photo Bucket (not necessarily recommending Photo Bucket, but it's the first one to come to mind), and linking it here.  Or if the picture is already posted somewhere, such as Facebook or a blog, I'm pretty sure you can link that photo too.
Hope that helps

There is no option to do that, only to upload.

I have tried for the last 2 or 3 years just to get people to let us know their first name and there is still a large % that will not?

It's anyone's right to be anonymous or obscure if they want to be but you'll get much better advice if you give us a zone and vague general location.

TorontoJoe, read post #16. I already know how to use photo sites to post pics. It's only a problem with avatars.

This was something I thought about when making my account. I have been gardening awhile. I have seen so many articles, posts, YouTube videos and without some kind of location info really limits your experience from mine. The valuable knowledge others put out would be even more valuable if they would include zone, climate, type details. Going to try and incorporate relevant info in the avatar picture. I'm brainstorming on that now.

Hmm. Not sure how I could have maxed the allowable space since I've only posted pics using photobucket. I appreciate your efforts.