At the moment, I have given-up trying to establish an Avatar with Gravatar. The site will not accept graphics which I have in my computer.....It notes the file reference and then provides me with black squares to crop.
Surely AB could have set-up it's own format.!!
Perhaps I am not the only person to be frustrated on matters.
But if you are only seeing black squares when you get to crop the photo I suspect you are either using the wrong format of pictures, or the ones you are using are too large.
With almost 15000 Answers within two years in AB, I would have thought that you might have been one of the first to have an Avatar.
Personally, I like your approach on matters and I would be at a loss to fault any advice which you have given to me; and hope there are other ABers who appreciate your responses.
Nevertheless, I am curious to know why you are, like myself, without ( what I think is unnecessary) an Avatar in AB.