# Test of smiley inserted for absolutely no clear reason in GD thread. **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [February 11, 2001, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-of-smiley-inserted-for-absolutely-no-clear-reason-in-gd-thread/54082 "2001-02-11T23:04:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Kyberneticist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dc4da7/32.png) [@Kyberneticist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyberneticist)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2001, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-of-smiley-inserted-for-absolutely-no-clear-reason-in-gd-thread/54082/1 "2001-02-11T23:04:53Z")
\>) above is a cut n paste of two characters from a post I did (\) ended up looking like this \>;) testing. the two characters, in case this gets screwed up, are \> and ) don’t put them next to each other, since the board parses them in an undocumented fashion (well, at least the smiley guide didn’t give ) as being an alternate for ; and ) ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2001, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-of-smiley-inserted-for-absolutely-no-clear-reason-in-gd-thread/54082/2 "2001-02-11T23:21:55Z")
\>) \>( ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2001, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-of-smiley-inserted-for-absolutely-no-clear-reason-in-gd-thread/54082/3 "2001-02-12T05:44:09Z")
\>) ket wane \<) bra wane \>j ket jay \>;) ket semi wane \>( bra wax Just some more testing. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2001, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-of-smiley-inserted-for-absolutely-no-clear-reason-in-gd-thread/54082/4 "2001-02-12T05:48:31Z")
Originally-typed characters appear in “quote”, apparently. Now let’s see if we can disable smilies: \>) ket wane \<) bra wane \>j ket jay \ **Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2001, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-of-smiley-inserted-for-absolutely-no-clear-reason-in-gd-thread/54082/5 "2001-02-12T07:17:29Z") We discussed this before. Rather than try to find that, I’ll just reexplain what I said then. The \< \> and & characters are transformed into \< \> and & by the software. This is to keep them from being read as html code. Apparently this step is done before sticking smilies in. The ; at the end of these then becomes part of a smilie. The ; is unnecessary to display the character in IE (don’t know what happens in Netscape), so both the character and the smilie show up. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2001, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-of-smiley-inserted-for-absolutely-no-clear-reason-in-gd-thread/54082/6 "2001-02-12T22:15:11Z")
> [@](#): > > The ; is unnecessary to display the character in IE (don’t know what happens in Netscape), In this instance, at least, Netscape exhibits the same behavior. I think, though, that both Netscape and IE require the closing ; in some cases to eliminate ambiguity. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2001, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-of-smiley-inserted-for-absolutely-no-clear-reason-in-gd-thread/54082/7 "2001-02-12T23:13:42Z")
Yeah, it looks like closing ;'s are not really necessary to display the escape sequences correctly. I checked the page source, and they’re not there. But it still displayed the same in Lynx (well, the smilies didn’t actually show up, as Lynx is text only, but it said [wink.gif] in their places). And if it works in Lynx, it’s probably pretty widespread. ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2001, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-of-smiley-inserted-for-absolutely-no-clear-reason-in-gd-thread/54082/8 "2001-02-12T23:32:55Z")
I believe this is the thread that **waterj2** ’s referring to: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=53175](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=53175) [sub](for some odd reason I remember it)[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Kyberneticist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dc4da7/32.png) [@Kyberneticist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyberneticist)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2001, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-of-smiley-inserted-for-absolutely-no-clear-reason-in-gd-thread/54082/9 "2001-02-13T23:59:10Z")
Thanks for the explanation. While it makes sense, it is clearly a bug for the software to reinterpret a sequence it has inserted as being instructions I inserted. Stepping on its own toes. Well, one more board bug it’d be nice for them to fix. That, and inserting spaces in URLs, even when they are inside the vB code element and wouldn’t screw up page layout.