Libravatar support

[rokejulianlockhart]

Rationale

@lightweight

While you can, of course, host your own “libravatar” instance, you can also make use of the exemplar of Libravatar, https://libravatar.org , exactly as you would Gravatar. No need to host your own. That Libravatar service is just like Gravatar, except with more freedom attached…

In theory, you should be able to swap the libravatar.org URL for the gravatar.com URL in Discourse’s configuration. I’m new to Discourse, so I haven’t seen if it’s an admin-editable URL, or if it has to be done in the filesystem (I suspect the latter) - it’d be very cool if this was abstracted into the admin settings (along with switches for the explanatory links that currently lead users to Gravatar.com) interface. I’d prefer to use Libravatar over Gravatar.

By the way, if you create a Libravatar account, it will help you import your existing Gravatar.com email addresses and associated images, so it’s an easy transition.

@lightweight

Given that Libravatar is both FOSS and a drop-in (API compatible) replacement for Gravatar, it seems like it offers some philosophical advantages and wouldn’t add substantially to the complexity of the codebase to allow implementations of Discourse to decide which service they prefer. I understand it might not be a priority for you guys at the moment - would you be open to a pull request if I can implement the support?

Implementation

@sam

I am open to making core more extensible and then you can use a plugin for libravatar support. A PR for the extensibility points is the best approach here.

@lightweight

Fair enough. Will look into how to do that. Thanks.

I don’t see any option yet. Has this progressed?

[Falco]

Yes, there is a site setting for gravatar base url.

[rokejulianlockhart]

@Falco

Yes, there is a site setting for gravatar base url.

So has this been implemented, then, @Falco? If so, please set it as Topics tagged solved or direct me to where how to is documented, because I don’t know how to.

[Falco]

@rokejulianlockhart

So has this been implemented, then, @Falco?

Yes, please give it a try and let us know how it goes.

[rokejulianlockhart]

Do you have the Q&A plugin installed, @Falco? I’d like to mark that as the answer to the OP.

[Falco]

Not in the feature category.

[JammyDodger]

As the feature already seems to exist, shall we slide this over to support so we can make use of the Solution button?

[rokejulianlockhart]

@JammyDodger

As the feature already seems to exist, shall we slide this over to support so we can make use of the Solution button?

Yes, @JammyDodger, but it would also be great if the plugin were enabled in all categories. I find that it works best like that on other Discourse instances.

[JammyDodger]

We have it enabled on a lot of our question/support categories, but don’t feel the need to turn it on for more discursive categories where there may not be ‘one right answer’. Though other forums may use it to good effect for similar things. That’s the beauty of Discourse, it’s incredibly versatile and can be tailored to suit different forum styles very easily.