# Did the old rolleyes smiley cause an increase in suicides or something? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 30, 2014, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-old-rolleyes-smiley-cause-an-increase-in-suicides-or-something/694457 "2014-07-30T23:41:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-old-rolleyes-smiley-cause-an-increase-in-suicides-or-something/694457/81 "2014-08-12T15:47:54Z")
I for one can’t believe that you people are so passionate about damn smiley-faces. They’re pointless and a waste of time and spending any thought-time at all about this is a classic case of loss-of-perspective. For God’s sake, are your lives so empty that this interests you so much? Someone tell me why I shouldn’t lock this thread as accomplishing nothing. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-old-rolleyes-smiley-cause-an-increase-in-suicides-or-something/694457/82 "2014-08-12T15:51:50Z")
Sayre’s Law: > [@](#): > > “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake.” By way of corollary, it adds: “That is why academic politics are so bitter.” Sayre’s law is named after Wallace Stanley Sayre (1905–1972), U.S. political scientist and professor at Columbia University. > [@](#): > > On 20 December 1973, the Wall Street Journal quoted Sayre as: “Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.” ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-old-rolleyes-smiley-cause-an-increase-in-suicides-or-something/694457/83 "2014-08-12T16:02:21Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > I for one can’t believe that you people are so passionate about damn smiley-faces. They’re pointless and a waste of time and spending any thought-time at all about this is a classic case of loss-of-perspective. For God’s sake, are your lives so empty that this interests you so much? > > Someone tell me why I shouldn’t lock this thread as accomplishing nothing. Isn’t this threadshitting? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-old-rolleyes-smiley-cause-an-increase-in-suicides-or-something/694457/84 "2014-08-12T16:45:28Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > I for one can’t believe that you people are so passionate about damn smiley-faces. They’re pointless and a waste of time and spending any thought-time at all about this is a classic case of loss-of-perspective. For God’s sake, are your lives so empty that this interests you so much? > > . Emoticons can be very important in MB posts. They convey sarcasm, humor, etc, where mere words would fail. 'Smile when you say that!". Now, for example the :rolleyes: emoticon. It has a excellent use to show sarcasm. But the graphic seems to actually show someone smiling at something over his head. The 🆒 emoticon is supposed to indicate exactly that, that you feel a post or line is “cool”. But the graphic indicates the opposite. Thus emoticons are not trivial as they assist in human communication. Humans react to facial cues as much as they react to mere words. Dex, sorry things have been rough over there for you guys. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-old-rolleyes-smiley-cause-an-increase-in-suicides-or-something/694457/85 "2014-08-12T17:07:52Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > I find it absolutely amazing that all of you know for certain that the smiley files are just sitting on a disk somewhere, where everyone knows exactly where they are, and copying them over will be an absolutely trivial thing to do. > > Now I don’t have access to the SDMB servers, but I personally had the impression that they were overwritten in the last upgrade, which means that they aren’t just sitting on a disk somewhere. I also assume that Jerry has better things to do than memorize where every single file that goes into a vBulletin system is located, so that he can instantly recall exactly what directory the smiley files are located in and exactly what other files in the system might be affected and might have to be copied over as well. Therefore I assume that doing the actual copy is more involved than just opening up a terminal window and typing “copy smileys”. And I also had the impression that the smileys haven’t been lost, but they are sitting in a backup tape somewhere. And I assume that Jerry and the powers that be don’t just happen to have a whole bunch of extra computers lying around with gobs of free disk space that they can use to restore one of those tapes to so that they can go digging through the files to find what they need. And I would assume that setting up a disk, finding the tapes, and doing all of that would take just a wee bit longer than just typing out a sentence or two of text. > > But all of you seem to know better than me. If he didn’t have the old files that wouldn’t have been a terrible excuse, though I’m sure someone would have found new gifs to hand to him. I’ve been here long enough to know that he makes very, very few mods to the files. As it stands, however, Dex has made it clear we’ll have to pony up “hundreds of thousands of dollars” before he’ll even listen to us. That’s some awful board administration. If we have to give him a cool quarter mil to get him to glance in our direction, maybe he needs to make someone else the admin. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-old-rolleyes-smiley-cause-an-increase-in-suicides-or-something/694457/86 "2014-08-12T17:22:37Z")
I’m afraid we’re going to agree to disagree here. We’ve told you the situation as it stands. We’ve told you what we can do about it, which is nothing. Nothing further can be gained by arguing with us or slapping us around because there is nothing we can do for you. I’m sorry that we cannot please everyone. Some days we can’t please anyone, not even ourselves, and ain’t that a shame? But that’s how it is. Now that it’s just recreational grousing, it’s gone far afield of the original topic and is not serving any useful purpose. This thread is closed. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-old-rolleyes-smiley-cause-an-increase-in-suicides-or-something/694457/87 "2014-08-12T17:22:43Z")
I don’t think this can be said any more plainly: those of you who are complaining are talking to the wrong people. Posting about this situation is here will probably not accomplish anything, and complaining about the above will probably also accomplish nothing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-old-rolleyes-smiley-cause-an-increase-in-suicides-or-something/694457.md?page=4)