Moodle in English: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

In another forum, a lively discussion started around 'the default image looks incredibly like a smiley ecstasy tablet!. Should we change it?'

For those who do not have any direct cultural experience with this, "Ecstasy" is the name of a drug. Learn more here, It is often associated with an event called a Rave. It is not legal to use this for recreational purposes in the United States and probably some other places.

So where is Elmo? Find the look alike ecstasy tab. http://www.ecstasy-kills.com/photos.php

Those are the facts. So now for some opinions.

Well maybe it sort of does look something like a tilted pill, except the pill is white. Would I get full credit for that short answer question?

Yes it does look something like one of the pills in the second row. First opinion.

So what! I've seen my country's flag used on items which contained illegal drugs, should we be changing the flag every month? No, we should not be changing the default Moodle user image for this reason. Second opinion.

I believe that educators should know signs of when a student might be moving in less socially acceptable directions. Some educators are required by law and/or by a code of professional ethics to recognize and deal with many cultural issues. For example in my culture, they are expected to know indicators of alcohol consumption, smoking various products and drug use. They receive - novel concept - training in these things. Knowledge can be used for good or evil. Was somebody seriously saying that knowledge of evil is use of evil? I disagree with that and that is at least my third opinion.

Realize I've jumped up and started shouting from a soapbox. Peace and Love to everyone. And yes I certaintly have done a few culturally inappropriate things in many parts of the world.

Please don't tell Martin that one of those ecstasy pills has the logo of one of those long tail creatures found in his part of the world. He might really get upset.

平均分：Not cool (1)

Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Benoit Brosseau - 2006年05月19日星期五 22:29

wow never saw those before, they really look like candy, i mean they REALY look like cady i use to buy for 25 cent in big bags when i was 8 Surpris

none of them looks like the default picture to me , not that i find the default picture really good but hey its just a mater of replacing 2 images in a folder if you dont like them so i dont see what all the fuss is about

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Joseph Rézeau - 2006年05月20日星期六 23:46

Hi Benoit,

>its just a matter of replacing 2 images in a folder if you don't like them so I dont see what all the fuss is about

Technically you are right, it's dead easy. Socially it's not that simple. It means that one person (Admin) will take into his own hands the power to impose upon hundreds or thousands of users (closer to the later figure in the case of a large institution such as my university) the default picture he deems best serves the purpose.

Of course, you will reply that if a user does not like the default picture, then they are free to upload their own ID photo or their favorite avatar. Now, technically, you'd be surprised to find out that such a simple operation is beyond the ability of many end-users. black eye

Have a nice day,

Joseph

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Darren Smith - 2006年05月21日星期日 18:47

Now, technically, you'd be surprised to find out that such a simple operation is beyond the ability of many end-users.

Very true. CMS Made Simple has great built in image manipulation tools. I don't think it is the top of anybody's must have list but having the facility for students to resize / crop / whatever their avatar images as they upload them would be really nice.

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Joseph Rézeau - 2006年05月21日星期日 20:25

Darren,
Thanks for pointing to that resource.
Joseph

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Tony Hursh - 2006年05月22日星期一 00:03

Pixoh lets you do simple image manipulation (resizing, cropping, brightness, contrast, etc.) on-line. It's pretty cool.

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Joseph Rézeau - 2006年05月22日星期一 00:55

That Pixoh site is excellent! cool

Just goes to show that smileys and ecstasy tablets discussions can lead you anywhere. wink

ATB

joseph

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Jan Dierckx - 2006年05月29日星期一 05:54

I'd hate to put all of you back off topic but ...

Doesn't that Pixoh logo bear a strange resemblance to a coca leaf?

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

N Hansen - 2006年05月29日星期一 06:15

There is someone I used to know that we had a joke about: Anything that was longer than it was wide he always saw some sort of phallic symbol in it...This discussion is starting to remind me of that.

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Dale Jones - 2006年05月22日星期一 02:40

Resize-o-matic is my favourite solution. Right-click the image, put in your preferences, hey presto job done.

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Ger Tielemans - 2006年05月29日星期一 03:20

What I like about the pixoh link, is that it is a webtoool, so you have it always with you: I put it directly in a HTML-blok on My Moodle Page in Moodle 1.6.

Do you have more of these webtools, Tony?
I also look at tools like:

http://www.zohowriter.com/ (online wordprocessor)
http://www.zohosheet.com/ (online spreadsheet)
Ajax in the future?
and a new fun-browser: my.snap.com

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Web-based tools (was: default Moodle picture)

Tony Hursh - 2006年05月29日星期一 03:23

Do you have more of these webtools, Tony?

Yeah, I've collected a few, but I'm always interested in hearing about others. We'll be looking at some of them over in the Technology and Pedagogy Study Group. How about adding yours to our "reading list" over there?

Putting it in an HTML block is a cool idea!

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Re: Web-based tools (was: default Moodle picture)

Ger Tielemans - 2006年05月29日星期一 03:31

Oops, I forgot I had to join! (Because I am building a new testset for the next schoolyear from Moodle1.6 beta 5, bringing the bookmark back to life

)

I (as my moodle page owner) make from all these links "popups" with the addition of target like:

<br /><a title="Another way of seeking" href="http://my.snap.com/" target="popup">My.snap.com</a>

The self written helpfile for the screengrabber I added this way (maybe there is a shorter way?) :
<br /><a title="usertools" href="https://studiewijzerplus.nl/divers/moodle23mei/file.php/1/public/MWSnap.exe">Screengrabber</a> <a title="usertools" href="https://studiewijzerplus.nl/divers/moodle23mei/file.php/1/public/help.php" target="popup">
<img title="help" src="https://studiewijzerplus.nl/divers/moodle23mei/file.php/1/public/help.gif" /></a>

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Re: Web-based tools (was: default Moodle picture)

Darren Smith - 2006年05月30日星期二 21:20

What's the URL for ToDo please? I have googled for it but it is a very common expression on the web

I'm looking for a web 2.0 to do list that staff and students can use (assuming that is what it is)

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Re: Web-based tools (was: default Moodle picture)

David Scotson - 2006年05月30日星期二 22:04

I'm not sure what ToDo is but you might like Ta-Da list.

It's one of the very nice 37signals web apps, almost all of which have free functionality as well as an additional subscription service.

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Re: Web-based tools (was: default Moodle picture)

Darren Smith - 2006年05月31日星期三 17:52

Excellent, thanks

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Re: Web-based tools (was: default Moodle picture)

Ger Tielemans - 2006年06月1日星期四 02:12

Sorry, ToDo is just a link to the student-bookmark-patch for Moodle1.6. (and I add now the TaDaList

)

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Just H - 2006年05月29日星期一 10:03

Hi Ger

Ajax in the future?

Have you had a look at AjaxWrite? Looks very promising.

Regards
H

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Ger Tielemans - 2006年06月1日星期四 02:15

Yes, I like it but it wants Firefox and in Europe 99.9% of the schools and the parents at home choose to pay for MS Windows with IE.

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Chris Lamb - 2006年05月23日星期二 16:50

This is true, but the same argument applies to any default setting - we set default themes, languages, icons, all sorts of settings. Extending the argument it could be said that whoever decided that the Ecstacy tablet/Liquorice Allsort would be the default Moodle smiley has imposed it on millions of Moodle users all over the world. The only way round that is to set the default to no picture at all, but that imposes a blank space on all your users. Whatever you do could be regarded as an imposition!

Chris

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Re: Contest Entry methodology: default Moodle user picture

Chris Collman - 2006年05月23日星期二 21:20

I agree that is what being an administrator is all about - having the power of deities, being the cultural enforcer of community values and of course making sure that others are having fun! Which suggests changing the default image at different times.

Since I love to create work for others, here is my contest entry:

A Moodle Administrator with the right permissions could replace f1 and f2 on a scheduled basis.

Some examples: the Moodle default user image changes for a couple of days around a national holiday, the start of a school marking period, every season, or every month! Get student involved with a contest around some theme designing or guessing the image. May is Math Month? A different Egypian Icon 13 times a year? Would you be able to correctly identify that a "blank" was a icon for pure existance on my karmaMoodle site?

I would not encourage selling advertising space via the default user logo, but this might appeal to some Moodle sites. If you use this idea, please make a 10% donation of your additional revenues in my name to Moodle.org

This is entirely too much fun. Another Chris

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Larry Zoumas - 2009年04月12日星期日 17:08

Ha ha! I just upgraded to 1.9 and am surprised to see the ecstasy pills as icons to represent new users haven't gone away. I am not sure if this is a moral issue for him or not... all I know is I wanna party with Martin Dougiamas ;)

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Mary Cooch - 2009年04月12日星期日 21:28

I had to google ecstasy pills to see what you meant! They're not pils - they're cakes

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Chris Collman - 2009年04月19日星期日 20:58

Wow, this 2006 thread keeps going! Like Mary says, if I recall events correctly in my MoodleHistory, it was Martin at a party who said "Let them eat cake" and thus f1 and f2 were born and will probably be around forever after. wink

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Martin Dougiamas - 2009年04月20日星期一 12:06

The smiley cakes will be gone in 2.0. See MDL-14361.

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

ben reynolds - 2009年04月21日星期二 01:10

I like the new icons, but there is something endearing (& enduring) about huge yellow smilies.

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Chris Collman - 2009年04月21日星期二 23:54

OK, so we should stay tuned there? I didn't see anything in the moodalis_tango theme at MDL-14361 except the smiley faces in /pix/s or the user.gif in pix/t.

User.gif has no MoodleColor or MoodleCharacter for that matter and I would pick the kiss.gif with MoodleColor lips over it any day.

What about using a version of the support or community icon figures? Maybe shoulder and head crop. In the official MoodleColor hues of course. They are about 1 step above generic and might allow some customization (flags, school badges etc) which is hard to do on f1 cakes. big grin

Until the pig in a poke is revealed, I bet Ben and I will be sticking with the good old esctasy cakes!

Best Chris

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Mike Churchward - 2006年05月20日星期六 23:14

Chris -

Thank you for posting those links. I personally had no idea what an Ecstasy tablet looked like, and it looks like they could look like anything! I think the idea to come away with here is that whoever makes these could make them look like any harmless, friendly product they want to - and that is frightening.

I am a father of two boys entering their teenage years, so I am very concerned about this issue. I have printed off this picture and I will hopefully get to use it in discussions.

mike

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Samuli Karevaara - 2006年05月21日星期日 02:18

LSD can be delivered in an even more stealth format than a candy look-a-like: it can be blended to a piece of paper (maybe other drugs too). Looking like stamps, for example. I understand that it is just placed under ones tongue to do it's dirty work.

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Samuli Karevaara - 2006年05月21日星期日 02:01

It's a more general thing than just looking like an ecstasy pill. The smiley itself ( : - ) ) dates originally to the 50's, but it's yellow graphic counterpart (

) was used as a symbol in Acid House music style since the mid-80's. The name of the music style may or may not be a reference to LSD, also known as 'acid'. Anyway, "they" more or less started the rave culture and drugs seemed to be generally associated with raves.

So it's a question of removing the smileys all together, if this is an issue. I think it's not. Smiley is such a wide phenomenon that it's not chiefly associated with drug abuse but with just what it is: an internet smiley. Have a nice day

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Danita Bond - 2006年05月22日星期一 15:25

i used to take a lot of e pills for a while ... first 2 i ever had were white ones...then we used to get different ones but they were never white,, but pink or blue.. blue one had like a makes logo and the pink ones i cant remember... i guess not all are white depending on what else is in the pill? .. so this forum chat thing whatever...is it jsut a disscussion board? ive been trying to find a website to teach me maori and i eneded up here...i dont know what to do now or where to go...

平均分：Not cool (1)

Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

Kenny Backus - 2006年05月27日星期六 01:56

There are a humongous variety of e pills around. I remember seeing a really big directory of them somewhere which described the particular varieties and whether they had anything extra. I would suggest looking that up for anyone who takes it because having random additives in psychoactive drugs can never be a good thing.

Anyways, no, this is a discussion board about a piece of e-learning software. Look up Maori on wikipedia or something.

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Re: Smiley face as a default Moodle user picture

Martin Dougiamas - 2006年05月29日星期一 00:04

Hmm, good advert for not taking ecstasy.

Seriously, this whole discussion is ridiculous, it's a smiley face. Please stop the trolling.

平均分： Not very cool (1)

Re: Smiley face as a default Moodle user picture

Ger Tielemans - 2006年05月29日星期一 03:24

If you look a moment at the photos from Chris in his first post, you realise that any redesign discussion is useless: all kind of icons are appearing on these pills: birds, horses, tulps, dino's, VW's... and as I said: Moodle is a drug that makes you smart..

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Re: Ecstasy as a default Moodle user picture

susana Tauaa - 2009年04月22日星期三 04:07

it could mean we are all happy moodlers.

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