Renault on 19/2/2008 at 05:51
Has there ever been any consideration to making replies consisting of only smilies (or some other emoticon) invalid? I've seen this more and more on the forums lately, and I find it completely annoying and unnecessary.
In other words, if all you can contribute to a thread is a smiling face icon, you shouldn't be responding at all. These people are likely just trying to increase their post counts anyway.
jtr7 on 19/2/2008 at 06:08
No. For myself, I am genuinely responding in a way that means I have nothing more to say than that. No harm intended. No selfishness included. I'm simply adding my "voice" to what's already been said. Like a nod, a smirk, an amen, a pat on the back, an expression of warmth, an agreement, etc. I don't see the need to write my feelings out with alphanumeric characters every time. This is a community of human beings to whom I should have no shame in giving a simple expression of my feelings on a matter. If a smilie sums it up, why is that wrong? I personally couldn't care less about thread count. As far as I can tell, there's no reward past having the label by my name read "Member". Frankly, I find smilie-hate bizarre and alien. I could understand if it was over-the-top.
mopgoblin on 19/2/2008 at 08:15
Smilies are fine as a substitute for the body language and tone-of-voice information that we don't otherwise get through the internet. They're not a substitute for actual language - in the real world, it'd be a bit weird to say something and then have a dozen people silently grin at you in response. And of course, every no-text reply decreases the amount of content per page by 4%. It's just annoying to have to scroll through walls of no-content posts to find three or four posts per page which have anything worthwhile on them.
Digital Nightfall on 19/2/2008 at 08:37
This is not a vote for or against this issue, but something should be pointed out.
If we ban posts that only have the text that results in a smiley image, then the next step would be for the user to just use image code to post the smiley in that way. If we ban single image posts as well, then the doors are open for a smiley graphic and a "..." message. What then? Ban messages that are under ten characters? Twelve? Is that going to prompt people to make their posts more meaningful, or just use more characters to get across the little they wanted to convey originally? Where do you draw the line?
Spaztick on 19/2/2008 at 09:19
:D
Mortal Monkey on 19/2/2008 at 09:56
There used to be a time where the minimum amount of characters in a post was three (or am I making this up?), not including smileys and tags.
The fact that I didn't realize until just now that that restriction had been removed, should tell you something about how frequently those horrible posts with less than three characters occur.
jtr7 on 19/2/2008 at 10:41
WTF?
It's not weird at all for one person to smile after a comment. A dozen? A half-dozen? This is happening here that often? The use of exaggeration like that is typically a sign of not having a leg to stand on. It's frikkin' laziness if one or two posts with less than a sentence on a page are too much to scroll through. My god. Someone needs a vacation if this is worthy of complaint. I've already wasted too many words on this. Maybe you need TTLG on RSS feed?
:mad:
ZylonBane on 19/2/2008 at 16:04
What I find irritating is when people use two smilies together that don't make any bloody sense. Like:
"OH HAI CAN SOMONE HELP ME? :thumb: :mad:"
On the other hand, it's not so irritating that I'd go start a thread about it.
Scots Taffer on 20/2/2008 at 23:59
Quote Posted by Mortal Monkey
There used to be a time where the minimum amount of characters in a post was three (or am I making this up?), not including smileys and tags.
The fact that I didn't realize until just now that that restriction had been removed, should tell you something about how frequently those horrible posts with less than three characters occur.
op
Stitch on 21/2/2008 at 16:31
:cool:
