Hello. Can we just do away with smilies? They're so irritating. I'm sure the option of putting in these annoying little images can be deactivated within Drupal.
please do away with smilies
Wed, 2013-03-27 10:35
#1
please do away with smilies
Wed, 2013-03-27 10:38
#2
Lou Arab
Wed, 2013-03-27 10:40
#3
To be serious, I think smilies help to mediate some of the difficulties in conveying tone in written language.
Wed, 2013-03-27 11:00
#4
To be serious, I think smilies help to mediate some of the difficulties in conveying tone in written language.
Maybe for some people, but they personally drive me crazy most of the time. Once in a while there will be a humorous post accompanied by some of the more creative smilies (like a vomiting smilie, or falling down drunk smilie, or something), that can add to the humour. But often they're used as a means to slip in an attack or some sort of baiting that adds nothing to the conversation. The inclusion of a smilie does not justify an attack or a bait in my opinion. So I don't see that as mediating anything.
Wed, 2013-03-27 11:01
#5
Timebandit
Oh, well. Get over it.
Wed, 2013-03-27 11:23
#6
I'm not cool enough to know where to find the 'creative smilies' that I also like better. [Or too much of a luddite to use anything that isnt right in front of me. Or whatever.]
So Imake do with uncool when I need to have something.
One of the problems with text as DIALOGUE is that you cannot convey subtlety in the way we all do in real life dialogue.
Wed, 2013-03-27 11:57
#7
How's this?
Wed, 2013-03-27 11:59
#8
Oh, well. Get over it.
Translation:
I stuck my tongue out at you and then frowned and yelled at you because you put your foot in your mouth by demanding that the poster seal his mouth.
Wed, 2013-03-27 12:26
#9
Do these count?
Wed, 2013-03-27 12:36
#10
Oh man that's disturbing.
Wed, 2013-03-27 13:21
#11
Catchfire
Thanks for opening this thread, mark-alfred, and to Unionist for offering a new segue. As fortune would have it, we're actually launching a new feature for babble where we are bringing back avatars. They will appear beside every post, on every page. The only catch is that animated GIFs are required. Here's a preview for mine:
In all seriousness, I usually try to avoid smilies too; but, like Jason Kenney and Vic Toews, they're part of the world we've inherited.
Wed, 2013-03-27 13:47
#12
I usually try to avoid smilies too; but, like Jason Kenney and Vic Toews, they're part of the world we've inherited.
Nice simile.
Wed, 2013-03-27 13:59
#13
Do these count?
No a blank box does not count.
Wed, 2013-03-27 14:31
#14
LMFAOROTF
Wed, 2013-03-27 14:32
#15
Catchfire
Uhg. No, I just can't do it. Time to type out a long argument defending my position....
Actually, I think your post makes that argument quite nicely... 
Wed, 2013-03-27 16:22
#16
Oh fine, I give up. 
Time to get off my soapbox 
and join the crew 
I should just relax. 
And celebrate. 
Yes, may as well declare it "peanut butter jelly time!" 
Of course, can't celebrate too much 
or else 
.
I'm sure smilies will lead me to: 
Yup .....
Uhg. No, I just can't do it. Time to type out a long argument defending my position....
Wed, 2013-03-27 17:08
#17
I think people using smilies to demean or humiliate another poster can be countered the way any such behaviour in print can be. I remember someone doing that to me on another forum. For some unfathomable reason, this person, who had always been an ally, suddenly developed an aversion to me. And took it upon self to bully me. It was like something out of grade 4 or so...
Eventually said person left the forum.
I guess the mods have to be attentive, as to what is harmless banter or debate, and what is bullying. And posters can complain.
Wed, 2013-03-27 17:24
#18
I think they are overused.
And although the inventor of the smiley never regretted only making $45 bucks off it, I am always reminded of how WalMart scooped it up and used it as an advertising gimmick for free.
Wed, 2013-03-27 17:39
#19
I rarely use them. Sometimes a bit of a wink.
Think I should be able to express myself in writing, after all.
Wed, 2013-03-27 19:31
#20
I think people using smilies to demean or humiliate another poster can be countered the way any such behaviour in print can be. I remember someone doing that to me on another forum. For some unfathomable reason, this person, who had always been an ally, suddenly developed an aversion to me. And took it upon self to bully me. It was like something out of grade 4 or so...Eventually said person left the forum.
I guess the mods have to be attentive, as to what is harmless banter or debate, and what is bullying. And posters can complain.
Some of the smilies lend themselves to passive aggression better than others (based on how it's actually used, the kissy face might as well be an extended middle finger). I think the challenge in dealing with them in the same way one deals with text is that their meaning might be more open to interpretation, which gives the poster a veil of plausible deniability.
Wed, 2013-03-27 19:40
#21
Catchfire
(based on how it's actually used, the kissy face might as well be an extended middle finger)
Heh. Yeah.
Think I should be able to express myself in writing, after all.
Are you being sarcastic? 
Wed, 2013-03-27 19:52
#22
[URL=http://www.smileyvault.com/][IMG]http://www.smileyvault.com/albums/userp...
![http://www.smileyvault.com/][IMG]http://www.smileyvault.com/albums/userp...](http://www.smileyvault.com/][IMG]http://www.smileyvault.com/albums/userpics/10172/lmaosmiley.gif[/IMG][/URL]){kind=link}
This one is too rude to use on this sight.
Wed, 2013-03-27 20:33
#23
I have a bad emoticon habit and I know it. I pretty much never use the animated ones on babble though - I usually just add a :) at the end of a sentence. I know it's a really bad writing habit and I don't do it in any sort of official or formal correspondence (and hardly at all even in informal conversations at work although sometimes they slip in). But conversationally online? Yup, probably way too much.
:)
Wed, 2013-03-27 21:27
#24
Left Turn
Use of smilies is all about context. Individual instances of smilie use need to be evaluated on their own merrits, but a good rule of thumb would be that if a given use of a smilie is not consistent with anti-opression politics it's better not to use it.
On type of smilie use that I do know is not ok is the type used by Debater in his post in the 2015 Election Predictions thread that appears to have prompted the creation of this thread. Namely when a sexist or othewise opressive comment is followed by a wink smilie, in an attempt to excuse the sexist comment by indicating that you didn't really mean it. Sexism and other types of opressive language don't work that way. Women and other people who face systemic opression in this society can't simply make the feelings that get brought up by the sexist or racist or homophobic comments go away just because the poster put in a wink smilie to indicate that they didn't really mean it.
Wed, 2013-03-27 22:36
#25
It's like TV -- if the show requires a laugh track, it just means the material is substandard. If one feels his/her writing needs a smilie to convey subtlety, meaning, or humour, then it's likely substandard (IE, there's actually nothing subtle, meaningful, or humorous within it and no smilie will help with that).
Wed, 2013-03-27 22:55
#26
All that is true, but we do need pictures of cats.
Wed, 2013-03-27 23:08
#27
I love the reference to cats in this send up of the internet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vVw1aPUybB8