1. you can have the uploaded avatar folder anywhere on your site
2. the KEY is making the path (HDD directory location) and the URL (web URI to get to that directory) match

sooo.. for example, lets take someone who is hosted on Mindraven as a case in point.

lets assume they are going to make it it's own dir under the threads install (which is already in the 'forums' directory)

lets assume the domain is named teehee.com

lets also assume the avatars will be stored in a directory called 'avvys' under the 'forums' directory

so the HDD path will be: /home/teehee/public_html/forums/avvys (no trailing slash)

then the URL to the avatars will be http://teehee.com/forums/avvys

then CHMOD the avvys dir to 777 and you will be good to go

when you setup the avatar paths, you can pre-test that it is working also, by going to http://teehee.com/forums/admin/profiles.php and click to test the avatar upload storage directory

note: replace 'teehee.com' with your domain and 'forums' with the actual path to your forums like 'forum', 'ubbthreads', 'community' whatever..

also the /home dealio is for the Mindraven servers (CentOS). some other paths are setup different (but very similar). You'd get the idea how it works by going to your cpanel paths like: http://teehee.com/forums/admin/paths_db.php to see the subtle differences there.

smile