A lot of mention has been made of the seriousness of Stack Overflow (and presumably Server Fault). Would it be a good idea to turn smilies :-) into actual images as per phpBB in questions and answers?
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11can you change the title.. you're really asking if smilies should be turned into images, which is different from asking if smilies (i.e. in text) should be allowed.– KipJun 29, 2009 at 14:21
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3I'm still waiting for a flounder smiley: ")– mmyersJun 29, 2009 at 17:08
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@mmyers meta.stackexchange.com/questions/636/…– alexiaFeb 26, 2011 at 19:29
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4When you paste code into Skype and it gets replaced with smiles all over the place, you feed bad...– Benjamin CrouzierOct 6, 2011 at 20:05
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1Why in the world is this downvoted? Both this and the accepted answer appear to have received votes simply on popularity. None of the top answers have a hint of explanation or discussion. I understand that people don't want emoticons (fair enough), but let's hear why that is.– jvriesemApr 21, 2016 at 19:54
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17 Answers
Please god no.
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1The populist badge makes relatively easy to get a gold badge. Remove the populist badge! :P Jul 2, 2009 at 20:53
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I will kill anyone who does this.
Just kidding! 
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7-1 for "just kidding"– user146787Sep 28, 2011 at 15:55
"Allowed"? Are we going to have a new close option? "Use of emoticons" is a reason to close a post?!?!
I can see it now...
closed as Using Emoticons by Ólafur Waage, malach, yshuditelu, TheTXI, dbr and Rich B
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I wasn't suggesting questions be closed, or answer be down voted because of the use of emoticons; simply, the system that is SO, shouldn't encourage the use of emoticons by translating :) into an image as the OP was asking. Jun 29, 2009 at 14:42
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@yshuditelu: I was just teasing all the folks here who seemed not-so-keen on the emoticons :P No big deal! Jun 29, 2009 at 14:45
Textual Smiles are fine. But all the graphics to represent them are lame. And it would be a shame to increase the "graphics load" of the finest text-only site on the internet.
Ugh, no. My wiki at work does this, and it busts "count(*)", transforming it into "count" followed by a star gif. :-( :-( :-(
I would say no. I believe a humorous answer now and then is a good thing and perfectly acceptable. However, I would see adding graphical smilies as encouragement to use them and I don't think its behavior that should be encouraged. It doesn't need to be discouraged, but I wouldn't want it to be encouraged.
Here you go, your flounder smiley, mmyers:
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1A flounder smiley should have both eyes on the same side of its head.– mmyersMay 16, 2011 at 15:49
If you really care about smilies that much, use Firefox and write your own smiley-to-image converter in Greasemonkey.
I love getting information from SO. Apart from fun questions, smileys always iritate me (even ASCII character based ones). If you want to be sarcastic, hint that something is not to be taken seriously, I suggest rephrasing in most cases. There is the odd case of humor - which most the times speaks for itself. And do not forget people with non English background.
But most of all, inline graphics are most distracting.
So please do not add this feature.
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Agreed, but could it be that ASCII smilies are helpful for readers who are less fluent in English or who do not share ones culture, and who may thereby not be equipped to pick up on ones attempts at subtle hints of humour or sarcasm?– masJul 9, 2009 at 7:11
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If you really want smilies you can add them yourself.
The site could host a small number of often used smilie images so that you could do this for example.
No way! Only the text smilies are universally loved. Everyone has different taste in graphical smilies.
If it's added, it should be an option. I kind of like them, but I think the development staff have bigger fish to fry. Besides... you can always do it manually if you must.
You may ban my account now:)
The amount of emoticons a person uses on a professional site like SO.com is inversely proportional to their intelligence.
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29Inversely proportional? So what's the intelligence of someone who uses zero emoticons? Jun 29, 2009 at 14:25
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10Depends whether you use integer or floating-point math. Jun 29, 2009 at 14:35
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1Sorry, but I don't agree... they can sometimes be useful, they can sometimes add more meaning than you could ever say in a lot of words. I do believe it's something that can be overused, but to say that it is "inversely proportional to their intelligence" sounds quite offending to be honest.– fretjeJul 2, 2009 at 7:44
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6I don't use them in answers (at least I don't recall having done so), but they can be useful in comments. Remember that on the Internet, no one can hear your tone of voice. A well-placed smiley may turn a comment from insulting to funny. You should try it sometime.– mmyersJul 2, 2009 at 16:55
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@fretje: It was meant to be offensive. We could do without any user who thinks smilies are an effective form of communication.– GEOCHETJul 2, 2009 at 17:10
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3Much like people who think ellipses are a great way to express themselves...– GEOCHETJul 2, 2009 at 17:10
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2Ellipses are the BEST way to express one's self... They indicate indicate thoughtful reflection... and are not at all trite or misused...– Shog9Jul 2, 2009 at 17:12
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1@Shog9: For extra points... insert them... where they make... no... sense... A triple double bonus is collected if you screw up the ellipses..– GEOCHETJul 2, 2009 at 17:15
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2@Rich B "We could do without...": Sorry, but what "we" are we talking about, you're confusing "we" with "I" me thinks.– fretjeJul 3, 2009 at 12:06
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