thank you - looks fun. 
Yep, that’s my board. And I don’t think it’s ugly at all. Its a mostly unmoderated football fan messageboard. Most of them out there look like ours. And both types of sites, this one and ones like that, have their place. And I wouldn’t want avatars and signatures here. I was asking about smilies. We have hardly any, and I wish we could choose from a whole lot more and I don’t understand the resistance to them. If someone abuses them, they get moderated. Easy peezy.
No, that’s not it… must be some other reason.
This board desperately requires the addition of :dinosaur:
Why? How would a :dinosaur: fight ignorance? Is it just name calling? Should using it prompt an automatic and automated warning outside of the pit? Because if so, I would support such an avatar: it’s best to keep people on their toes. Provided the language of the warning is suitably officious.
Oh and the something awful board looks clownish and ugly. Not that I have a problem with that forum. Animated spitballs seem appropriate in that venue. But not here.
Go look at what it does. :dinosaur: is awesome. Nothing else quite conveys the same message.
What’s a wan ring? Do you get one from a Cracker Jack box?
All smilies should be removed. They detract from the austerity that lends the SDMB credibility in its fight against ignorance.
I hate when I am distracted by images while reading up on such weighty topics as:
Techniques for getting women riled up for sex
Who’s the most famous person you or someone you know has had sex with?
Adding ice to an ice chest
Do dogs know their names?
Oh. My. Googlymoogy.
I’m an oldSk00ler. My experience with net communities started with Usenet over 300 bps modems. I still mourn the anniversary of Eternal September.
Those forum postings with literally megabytes of graphical trash (much of it copyright violating) are the 21st-Century malignant outgrowth of the worst abuses of Usenet sig-trolling. The elders in the Usenet tribes made sure you understood that a signature block of more than four lines was highly frowned upon. Persistence would get you into kill files of everyone that mattered, and you’d be posting into clear air and wondering why no one ever responded to you.
Seriously. What ever happened to understatement? What ever happened to laconic wit?
If the point being made by linking to that other forum is that enhanced animated smilies is the first step on a path leading to that kind of egregious spam… well, even if the argument isn’t convincing or authoratative (for reason of being another kind of slippery slope argument)… I have to concede we just can’t take the risk. Kill it with fire. Lift off and nuke it from orbit.
The people who ask for a certain feature that all other message boards have make sense. Unfortunately, they always link to a gawdawful example of a site using that feature, like X-TREEM gamer clan boards, or the Bengals board FoieGras mentioned.
Here’s the smilies on my board. Nothing animated, nothing too big, most sharing the same design vocabulary or language. I don’t see the argument that a few more small, tasteful smileys would be the death of the board. Then again, considering avatar threads …
While I am a fan of animated smilies (welcome to the 21st Century people!), a collection exactly like what you posted here would be fine too. I just like a little more variation…and I disagree with those that think that they are clutter, garbage or somehow impede the “fight against ignorance”. I think that smilies, when used appropriately, enhance rather than detract from messageboards. I would also argue that having more variation adds more nuance.
The hell with all that-whatever happened to killfiles?
I wouldn’t mind a better facepalm smiley, and a nauseated one. (THAT one would really come in handy)
They became “ignore lists” and in the process became too complicated to use. 