why does my nametag
 

why does my nametag say founder under or beside my picture
also how do i get a picture of my pirate to be my avatar

You were one of the first 5000 (I think its 5000... I'll check on that) that joined the forums - hence, like in the POTCO game you get the Founders Tag for you name.

Note: the Founders tag has nothing to do with the POTCO Founders tag - its just an 'award' here ;)

As for the avatar, you would need to take a screenshot of your pirate in POTCO, use MS Paint for example to open the screenshot to cut your pirate out of the screenshot to make a small square avatar, paste that into a new file of MS Paint, save it as a jpg file on your comp, then upload it under your UserCP settings where it says to upload Avatar.

thats about it :)

There is a function within the game to take screenshots. I think it is the F9 key, but check in the screenshots section of the forums for that info as it has been posted a few times. Also you can use the printscreen key if you are running windows. Paste the capture into windows Paint or other graphic/photo editing program to focus in on your pirate.