I completely agree, while I respect the minimalism the site is striving for it really does have a negative affect on discussion; most comments sections appear as a stream of black and white occasionally broken up by some blue and it is far too impersonal. I don't think that Avatars are necessarily the only way to go nor even the right way. I propose give users a few dots next to their username and let them choose the colours of them, this would give sufficient personality and distinction to comments and help users recognise their friends at a glance. It wouldn't be too difficult to implement, nor require much space to store, certainly less than an avatar system would. It would be tempting to tie earning these dots in with the badge system, but something doesn't quite sit right with that idea to me... though perhaps an extra one or two as a donation perk would be okay. Edit: Like this, but preferably in-line with the current name and time
Hmm. I get it, I do, but I see two draw backs. The minimalization of this website comes from being text based. Adding more and more non-text elements would detract from the sites aesthetics. At the same time, I doubt that a series of colored dots would do much to successfully convey needed information.
I think this would be very helpful to visual learners. Rather than remembering names you can see all red dots and know who a person is. Maybe you could also have a few different shapes to help differentiate as some might choose the same colours. Instead of it being "all reds" it is now "all square reds" or "all star reds". Its a nice bit of costumisation that i think goes with the website's minimalistic look and doesn't involve the use of avatars.