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Hi...Just wondering: it seems my gravatar has changed. I changed my "id" a couple days ago, but that didn't change my rep or openID or gravatar at the time...just my "username"... However, I noticed that at some point today, my gravatar has been changed. I was growing quite fond of my former ! Any reason for the change? Both the tone (degree of "blue") and the pattern have changed. I'd like my "old" one back, but if these are periodically altered, for some reason, and/or there's no way to retrieve the "old" one, that's okay, I suppose. [Note, I found my "old" gravatar w/current user ID on the Stack Exchange Site (page listing rep and ranks for math.SE).

See here: old gravatar

Compare to the gravatar associated with my username/post "signature" below.

I assumed changing my userID wouldn't impact my gravatar...And just to be clear, I didn't change my userID to "hide" or try to disassociate from my former. The truth is, I know of only one other currently-active user whose name reveals her gender as "female"...as mine had. I've been wanting to raise this issue here for a while, but I'll wait to confront that challenge down the road. I have no problems with those who have come to know me by my gender-revealing user-name...and if someone wants to "crack" my current id...it isn't hard to do, so my name is implicit in my username. But I'd rather it not be immediately apparent.

If changing one's user id entails a change in gravatar, so be it...but if possible, I'd like to retain/regain by former?

Edit(update):

I have registered the image I had saved of my old gravatar with gravatar.com, so now the gravatar accompanying my user name below (signature of post) matches the image I included in this post. I'd still like to get to the bottom of this...(I also had to add the email address associated with my gravatar account on my profile here. If it would help, I can temporarily remove that email (which had been unnecessary before), and restore the "new" (now replaced by "old" gravatar, if that makes sense!)

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  • $\begingroup$ I was pretty sure that Gravatars, particularly the geometric identicons that fill in if you haven't uploaded your own image, were driven by a hash of your email address. Did you change your email address? $\endgroup$
    – Isaac
    May 26, 2011 at 23:09
  • $\begingroup$ (see also stackoverflow.com/questions/392280/…) $\endgroup$
    – Isaac
    May 26, 2011 at 23:15
  • $\begingroup$ @Isaac: thanks for chiming in. No, my email hasn't changed...I changed only my user-id for the site. $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    May 26, 2011 at 23:25
  • $\begingroup$ Re: females. There was a "discussion" on meta.MO, which started out more or less acceptable, but at some point degenerated quite badly, so don't read too far into that thread unless you're really into following trolls. $\endgroup$
    – t.b.
    May 26, 2011 at 23:28
  • $\begingroup$ @Theo: No, my concern about gender bias was not fueled by, or influenced by, that thread. I hadn't encountered it prior to your link. And I'm reluctant to raise the issue here, precisely because I don't want the discussion to degenerate. I just read the initial posts over at MO (your link), but given your "heads up" about the degenerated nature of the discussion, as it progresses, I intentionally cut off my reading of the thread before getting to that point...I try not to get sucked in by trolls, and if that means abandoning a thread, so be it! $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    May 26, 2011 at 23:58
  • $\begingroup$ One easy way to regain your old gravatar is take a screen dump of it and register it as your avatar at gravatar.com. $\endgroup$
    – Bill Dubuque
    May 27, 2011 at 0:17
  • $\begingroup$ @Bill: Thanks for your input. That idea occurred to me after saving the image from the Stack Exchange site to my computer, in order to edit my post and upload the image. I could simply upload the image at gravatar.com and register it, as you suggest. $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    May 27, 2011 at 0:36
  • $\begingroup$ Btw, speaking of your old user name, was it meant to imply any relationship to the user with the same two initials, or was that merely a coincidence? $\endgroup$
    – Bill Dubuque
    May 27, 2011 at 0:53
  • $\begingroup$ @Bill: your question was also asked in a comment a while back. No...no intention to imply a relationship with X.Y., and in fact, no such relationship exists (save for the sort of relationship we all have as users here!) It just happens that the letters following my first name (my middle initial and last initial) = X.Y. ;-) $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    May 27, 2011 at 1:07

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Your previous image came from this URL (or a variant of it): http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/d67971094d3319fcad22f45f7f09822f?d=identicon&r=PG

Your current image comes from this URL (or a variant of it): http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/3215d44b39fa09b55c9a045ad285a2b4?d=identicon&r=PG

In the first case, the "hash" is d67971094d3319fcad22f45f7f09822f; in the second, it's 3215d44b39fa09b55c9a045ad285a2b4.

Looking at my own image, it has URL http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/5ea3f0de48c164262cb00e37b6e67a30?d=identicon&r=PG, meaning the hash is 5ea3f0de48c164262cb00e37b6e67a30, which is exactly what I get when I run echo -n [my email address] | md5. If you've put in an email address and it hasn't changed, then I'd suggest trying echo -n [your email address] | md5 (on a *nix or Mac, at least) and seeing if it matches up to either of your apparent hashes.

edit: and, were it me, if it doesn't match up, I'd go trying other bits of information into md5 to see if any of them spit out a matching hash (display name, openid, user id number, ...)

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  • $\begingroup$ @Isaac: Thanks! I temporarily registered the "saved (old gravatar) image" at gravatar.com. Now my old image is showing up on math.SE, not here yet, on meta. I'll try your suggestion when I'm on campus and have access to Unix (unless you have any suggestions for Windows 7 OP)? I'm just trying to figure out how the change could have occurred...hmmm. I changed nothing but my user ID (clicking on edit id, not "edit openID)...adding nothing else but new user ID...hmmm. Not a big deal, really, but puzzling. $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    May 27, 2011 at 1:58
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    $\begingroup$ @amWhy: Yeah, it's definitely strange. I have no idea about doing md5 hashes on Windows and I don't have access to a Win7 machine at the moment, so I guess the experimentation will have to wait until you've got access to a Unix box. $\endgroup$
    – Isaac
    May 27, 2011 at 2:11
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    $\begingroup$ @Issac, try miraclesalad.com/webtools/md5.php $\endgroup$
    – lhf
    May 27, 2011 at 21:18
  • $\begingroup$ @lhf: Ahh, very nice! $\endgroup$
    – Isaac
    May 27, 2011 at 21:53
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    $\begingroup$ @amWhy: The link in lhf's comment works for doing the md5 calculations. $\endgroup$
    – Isaac
    May 27, 2011 at 21:53
  • $\begingroup$ @lhf: @Isaac: Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    May 28, 2011 at 1:16
  • $\begingroup$ My gravatar has been changing every day. Today it is violet, yesterday it was a nice russet color, day before I think blue and before that a sort of poison green. I did not change my email. And of course it is a different color in meta than main... $\endgroup$
    – daniel
    Oct 4, 2012 at 16:26

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