Not to pick on the OP of this thread, but it seems that every few weeks we get an ATMB thread asking for more smilies. There’s always someone who wants animated ones (probably the same dumbasses who want avatars) and of course the constant request for the Pukey smilie.
I’ll admit that I like to use a few of them every once and a while. The is useful if you’re making a joke and just want to make that extra clear, and are kind of traditional and not going away so I’ll deal with those, and the :rolleyes: works really well here at the SDMB, particularly in GD. But for Christ’s sake, we don’t need any more than that. In fact, I was thrilled when they got rid of the Wally and the Jewish guy, not because I hated them any more than I hate the others, but because I hate smilies on principle.
Let me address the Pukey smilie specifically, since that comes up every single time. It would be the most abused smilie on this board. It would pop up a million times in every Bush-bashing thread, and people would start TMI threads just so they could use it. You don’t need it. You could just type :BARF: and it would have the same effect, which would be to piss me off.
Cue a whole bunch of :BARF:'s followed by a bunch of in the first few responses to this thread.
Learn to express yourself with words. It’ll come in handy out in the real world. Besides, everyone loves to talk about how we’re all so smart here. If that’s the case, we should be able to get by without using any smilies at all.
Think of how many times that discussion/argument has come up, and think about the total number of smileys available on the board and I think you’ll see a negative trend overall. I really don’t think we’re going to be getting additional ones any time soon.
Agreed. At the Far Right Christian site I lurk on they have about a milliions smilies (and most other sites, that, along with avatares, and sig lins that are a page long).
The ones on the “Christian” site that get used are usually an animated burning head of anger, and pukey. Nice folks over there.
That said though, well, I think we communicate differently depending on how we’re doing it. Face to face speech is different than written speech. When the phone came along they came up with new things (like “hello”). For what ever reason communication on the internet is closer to the telephone. To speech. Just worked out that way. So we put in emotional images to make up for lack of body language, or intonation of voice.
I dunno, I think we have just the right number. How are we going to get along without dubious?
We’ve only added two in the semi-recent era: :smack: and :dubious:
Adding smilies as good as that at a rate of every two years, while culling out some of the less appropriate ones, is not the same as turning the board into this.
I’d still like a wry emoticon… the ASCII smilie :z was traditionally used in email and text-only message boards. It would take some of the burden off :rolleyes: for expressions of attitude less than fully contemptuous and/or implicating self as well as others in culpability, etc.
I admit I harbor no great enthusiasm for :pukey: though.
Nothing whatsoever to do with this thread, but I snorted with laughter when I saw where that link went. For the uninitiated, that’s Saurav Ganguly, ex-captain of the Indian cricket team and current whipping-boy, it seems.
I rarely use smilies, and don’t feel any kind of need for new ones. I wouldn’t cry if a few were added, but I would be seriously pissed if animated ones were added. I’ve never seen a really good need for them. As for a pukey smiley, please no. I really don’t need to see that every time I open a thread.
You only say that because you forgot our Winter of Missed Content when we all fled far away in a virtual ark. Remember smashy? That little guy just cracked me up. He would just take any argument and crush it with his little hammer. I know that lots of people were devastated at his demise when this place was rebuilt and we got to move back in. God I miss him.
I gave it as intended in the next message
<:****)~
A clown (or dunce)'s hat, and a tongue sticking out (or wispy beard).
(The problem is that if you have “:” and “)” next to each other, this board automaticaly substitutes – I put some invisible code between to stop the automatic substitution)
is useful if you’re making a joke and just want to make that extra clear, 
and 
are kind of traditional and not going away so I’ll deal with those, and the :rolleyes: works really well here at the SDMB, particularly in GD. But for Christ’s sake, we don’t need any more than that. In fact, I was thrilled when they got rid of the Wally and the Jewish guy, not because I hated them any more than I hate the others, but because I hate smilies on principle.
:dubious: 
