I swear there used to be an evil smiley. I remember looking for a different smiley once before, and not finding it. And I KNOW there was a “Putz” smiley long ago. I got a mod-slap-on-the-wrist for saying “Putz” once when I noticed the smiley was gone.
IMHO: I liked HOJM, because it was so incongruous. It was like the most overly-specific thing you could put into a list of emotions to be expressed. It fit into the roster of smileys like a Macintosh SE case-cracker fit into a household toolbox. I don’t think I ever used it.
Back during “The Winter of Our Missed Content” we were temporarily on another outside message board while this one was being rebuilt.
The temporary board had a variety of smilies including an animated one with a hammer. We turned off the animation very quickly but even the static smilie was a bit hit, so to speak.
Some people promptly fell in love with “Smashie,” as they called him, and have been asking for him ever since.
We resisted the urge to bring Smashie with us when we returned here as the smiley set was not royalty free and we did not have the right to simply appropriate the image.
The current smilies in place are, I believe, vB standard and there are no issues with their use. We do not currently anticipate adding to the list, though perhaps in future (especially with any possible vB upgrade) that situation may change.
The best smilies aid in the fight against ignorance by softening speech and drama.
Furthermore, it can be difficult to convey attitude with the mere written word: the smilie permits something similar to tone of voice.
Along those lines, a barf-smilie is a bad idea. It’s unnecessary and tends to add heat. Ick. *
The dubious smilie is essentially a softened roll-eyes. Smackie is preferable to the embarrassed icon.
What we still need though is an alternative to the winky, something amiable but a little less corny. I’m not sure what we might call it though: :facetious: doesn’t seem right and would be easily misspelled. :twinkle: doesn’t work well, nor does :simpatico: or :congenial:.
:kidding: ? :joshing: ?
Obligatory:
Then again, we could just try upgrading the winky itself.