What is the system that allows for anonymous pictures portraits?

Question

Anyone knows what is the system that allow blogs / websites to generate a random picture for anonymous commenters? Its always the same picture if you input the same name and email, seems very useful but can't track down what it is.

It's used here on stackoverflow, and I've seen it on a number of other sites and blogs.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Gravatar

Answer 2

Identicon is what I was really looking for, but the Gravatar answer allowed me to find it! Thanks Jeff! I assume the lazy registration is handled separately then.

See: http://scott.sherrillmix.com/blog/blogger/wp_identicon/

Answer 3

You're looking for identicons.

Alternatives to it are wavatar and monsterids.

Both Gravatar and Libravatar (an open source and federated alternative to gravatar), support it as fallback when no user-supplied image is available for the email address.

Answer 4

Use gravatar, it's what you use to to change youre account picture. You can sign up free here:gravitar

If you want to change youre profile picture, go to user settings, click edit, then change picture. Sign up, then choose a picture. Make sure that the email address you signed up for is the same as the one in youre account. Enjoy.