Do we want emojis in posts?

Question

I am looking for a canonical question and answer on this issue.

This question (see edit history) on Pets.se has prompted me to ask this question.

In all honesty I think we just don't need a comic strip to explain what a user is saying. Currently I edit out emoticons I see, but this post presents a whole new type of .... ? what I'm not sure.

Is there are community consensus on this either way?

These questions are related — but different:

• Should smilies be turned into images in questions and answers?
• Emoticons, am I the first?
• Support Emoji in Markdown

Please try and answer sensibly (rolls eyes at the prospect of a flood of emojis in answers) — so we can actually have something that we can link to new users (or old users) when editing this stuff out — or (even worse), defending its existence.

Answer 1

I would consider it noise in context. It adds little to the post, and is no different from indiscriminate, superfluous formatting.

Not to mention that emoji hardly render in a consistent way, so another user might see a series of boxes. There might also be some ambiguity in interpretation, and/or difficulty in reading it for some.

I'd say this is something I would strongly discourage, except when the emoji is an essential part of the question (and even then, some babysitting is needed).

Answer 2

Well, the only place where I need to use an emoji is to coax users to accept and upvote answers that they found helpful instead of typing "thanks" and moving on.

Don't write thanks in the comments. Instead, click the accept button (the tick ✅️ button) and upvote it (the 🔼 button) as a token of gratitude. This lets everyone know that the problem is solved.

Of course, I actually have to put the emoji because I've seen a few newbs who ask "Where are the upvote and accept buttons? I can't find them!".

And of course, the most bloodboiling newbie response, "What does a tick symbol look like?".

Answer 3

There are cases where I see emojis are useful. For example, in Software Recommendation there is a feature request to have checkbox. Or when the conversation seems to be heated, an emoji can reduce the heat but still convey the necessary information.

^{If you use Windows, you can use AutoHotKey and add emojis via Markdown with this script.}

Answer 4

The emoji do, or did, serve a purpose in text conversation. You don't hear inflection nor see physical clues as to the intent of the words... I'm guilty of using smiley faces because I never know when my sarcasm has gone over the endurance of people... A form of apology in advance?