Please turn off this forum! The avatars are the only advantage over a mailing list. This is bitter but true. Give something better a chance. Give up!
I'm pretty sure that avatars will be disabled until at least the new forum is out and being used - as theymos has stated it was removed due to an exploit made possible by avatars and though I believe the exploit has been patched he is not keen on restoring the functionality.
From what I've heard, pretty much. The exploit involved uploading a php script instead of an image into an executable directory, then using it to put some (slightly) malicious Javascript into the forum's MOTD so that it ran on every page. I followed the troubleshooting and analysis through IRC while it was being fixed immediately after the hack, but it seems that avatars may be disabled for a while anyway.
Though the exploit used has been patched, it's been long enough that I suspect new avatars may remain disabled until the new forum software is put into place, but those who had them before the hack like me were able to keep them (though we can't change our avatars either).
Yes, that's two quotes at the top; I'd tell you to please use the search function next time
Three quotes, whee. The stricken through section was directed at the OP of that quote's thread, but is no longer relevant here. This or a similar note should probably be stickied somewhere (either here or possibly in the Beginners forum, though it is forum-related so Meta is a fitting place for it), since it gets asked so often.
Four quotes, I'll have to trim it down next time to keep it from becoming unreadable.