Poll: More "smilies" or none at all?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Beyond the basic happy smiley and maybe the wide-eyed oh-shit smiley I have no firm idea of what the others mean, and AFAIK no way to find out.

It isn’t communication if your audience doesn’t know the terminology you’re using.

A hundred years ago you could send somebody 3 white lilies and 2 yellow daffodils and they’d know what it meant. They could write a whole paragraph about the meaning of those particular flowers in that particular combination.

Who here (including me) has the slightest idea now what that meant then?

Back to smilies, they’re mostly harmless noise. They’d be a better tool for communication (the point after all), if the posting page provided a textual explanation next to each icon, so our collective usage would converge towards a common standard.

I just found out from AskNott that you can hover over a smilie and see the “official” meaning. I’ve been here a year and I never knew that; I bet the majority of posters that use them heavily have no clue what the official meanings are either.

My bottom line: they’re silly things for silly posts. For some folks, thats a good fit. For others, not. But I sure wouldn’t want the SDMB to kill them off; it’s reactionary conformism to want to eliminate something just because it doesn’t match your taste.

22

I like the smilies.

I say that cautiously: I would not like it at all if we ended up with animated smilies.

I must also say that i agree that :o needs to be fixed (kill the open mouth if you wanna do embarrassment); :smiley: needs to be fixed, that’s a really badly rendered grin, not sardonic enough, teeth too big, etc.

I’d like to see some more. The previous process (proposing, voting, adopting one at a time) seems to me to be a good one.

I still want an ambivalent/wry smilie, the graphical equiv of :z

23

I can live with them, in moderation. And without animation. I don’t think they’re necessary, or even particularly desirable … I wouldn’t miss them much if they went.

24

They’re mangy smileys, but I likes 'em!

Rather than more of them, I agree that better graphics could be used to make the ones we have clearer.

I love and (ab)use :rolleyes: :smack: :smiley: :eek: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve needed that rolleyes smiley in chat or IM.

I agree that :wally and ;j can be retired.

:dubious: is just nasty. I like the idea but the graphic just doesn’t do it for me.

:o needs refinement.

And I must disagree with a previous poster about the : P . That is not a pondering tongue sticking out the side of his mouth. It’s the only way text can get the blasted tongue but it’s literally (ha!) sticking your tongue out at some one. A shortened version of “neener neener neener”, if you will.

And animation is just plain wrong. They are distracting and annoying at best.

25

More smilies? :rolleyes:

26

Smilies suck. Get rid of them.

All the votes above to get rid of the putz one makes me suspect many don’t know it’s origin.

27

In the ATMB thread, someone explained to me that the “putz” emoticon ( :wally ) is essentially a memorial to a former poster (Wally). That said, I still do not like the “putz” emoticon just because of its awkward size. I think the “smack” emoticon ( :smack: ) can be used to convey both the idiocy of one’s self or someone else.

The “jewish” emoticon ( ;j ) is pure fan-service.

The “embarrassed” emoticon ( :o ), as others have pointed out, looks more like a yawn. I also contend that, if someone’s mind is in the right/wrong place, it looks like something else entirely. :wink: The color is fine for suggesting embarrassment, but the eyes and mouth are both wrong.

I submit that the eyes should be like the “roll eyes” emoticon ( :rolleyes: ), but with the pupils looking down at an angle to the left or right (i.e. averting your eyes), and that the mouth should be a short straight line.

I consider :slight_smile: :stuck_out_tongue: :smiley: to be a decent ladder of amusement - a smile, a chuckle and a laugh, respectively. I don’t know what the original intent of the “tongue” emoticon ( :stuck_out_tongue: ) was, but it seems to confuse a lot of people.

The one emoticon in particular that I want to see is an “devilish/evil” one. In regular text, I’ve displayed it as >:-) But, depending on a person’s computer settings, it doesn’t always look quite right. (It doesn’t look quite right to me, in fact.) I propose an amalgamation of :slight_smile: and :mad: .

The “mad” emoticon’s red face and angry eyebrows are perfect. Add a regular smile, and there you have it. Although, if at all possible, I think two little devil horns would add a little more to the emoticon, and make it less likely that someone would mistake it for a simple “mad” emoticon during a quick scan of a post or thread.

Anyhoo…

28

Beauty Personified wrote

It is exactly that. But it holds a different meaning to those who were around then.

None-the-less, I still say get rid of 'em all.

29

I have never used one, and they remind me of the perky cheerleaders in high school who used to dot their i’s with a smilie or a heart.

Like Lou Grant said to Mary, “I hate perky.”

30

Actually, Lou told Mary, “I hate spunky”, but you get the gist.