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Peter Evans
post Aug 27 2006, 05:32 PM
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Mankind (or if you prefer humankind) managed to communicate without smilies for centuries. Millennia, even. Now, perhaps a lot of people think they're cute, perhaps a lot more people think that they need to have them because the precise nuances of their comments might otherwise be misunderstood, and gawsh, people are so sensitive, y'know?

I found smilies interesting for a period of about five minutes perhaps five years ago. But now, I'm sick of them. Just about every bloody forum I go to has them. (Lean, mean old htmlhelp.com/bbs/ is a refreshing exception.)

It's just byte-wasting crapola, really. No smilies, please.
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pandy
post Aug 27 2006, 05:39 PM
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You can turn them off in Board Settings.
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Peter Evans
post Aug 27 2006, 06:20 PM
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Thanks for the nudge. "Do you wish to view images in posts, such as smilies and posted images?" Well, I don't want to view smilies. So NO. Bit of a waste when people start posting meaningful images.

I said bye bye to "avatars" too.

More signal, less noise.
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John Pozadzides
post Aug 28 2006, 12:36 AM
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QUOTE(Peter Evans @ Aug 27 2006, 06:20 PM) *

I said bye bye to "avatars" too.

That was one of the good things about this particular board. Even though there are a lot of features, users can disable a lot of them so that everything is tailored to individual preferences...

John
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Peter Evans
post Aug 28 2006, 06:25 AM
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But I now read the URLs of the smilies, for example

"Do you want another color? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)"

It's as if people had forgotten to add 'ALT=""'
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Peter Evans
post Sep 2 2006, 09:20 AM
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Yes, smilies suck.

Consider this thread. I am here going to have to refer to lowercase letters of the alphabet as "ay" and "bee" (even though I actually wrote "a" and "b"). I wrote:

QUOTE
I wonder whether it might be necessary to distinguish between (ay) messages such as mine and (bee) flamebait, etc.


Preview showed me

QUOTE
I wonder whether it might be necessary to distinguish between (ay) messages such as mine and ([some stupid smiley]) flamebait, etc.


I noted that "emoticons" were enabled (funny, I thought I'd disabled the **beep** [thank you, nannyware] things in my profile). I disabled them, and re-previewed

QUOTE
I wonder whether it might be necessary to distinguish between (ay) messages such as mine and (bee) flamebait, etc.


Now I read:

QUOTE
I wonder whether it might be necessary to distinguish between (a) messages such as mine and ((IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) flamebait, etc.


Ugh.

Can't smilies be completely disabled? I don't want autoconversion into smilies. I don't want smilies. I don't want autoconversion out of smilies to ugly text. All I want is intelligent text on web-related issues, not *beep* equivalents of winks and nudges and the mess they cause.
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Liam Quinn
post Sep 2 2006, 10:34 AM
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QUOTE(Peter Evans @ Sep 2 2006, 10:20 AM) *

Yes, smilies suck.

Consider this thread. I am here going to have to refer to lowercase letters of the alphabet as "ay" and "bee" (even though I actually wrote "a" and "b"). I wrote:

QUOTE
I wonder whether it might be necessary to distinguish between (ay) messages such as mine and (bee) flamebait, etc.


Preview showed me

QUOTE
I wonder whether it might be necessary to distinguish between (ay) messages such as mine and ([some stupid smiley]) flamebait, etc.


I noted that "emoticons" were enabled (funny, I thought I'd disabled the **beep** [thank you, nannyware] things in my profile). I disabled them, and re-previewed

QUOTE
I wonder whether it might be necessary to distinguish between (ay) messages such as mine and (bee) flamebait, etc.


Now I read:

QUOTE
I wonder whether it might be necessary to distinguish between (a) messages such as mine and ((IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) flamebait, etc.



When composing a message, there is a Post Options section with an "Enable emoticons?" checkbox. If you uncheck that, then you should be able to type stuff like (b) with no worries.
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Christian J
post Sep 2 2006, 10:38 AM
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From a technical point of view the problem seems to be that the smilies are not contained in [ and ] brackets like the other BBCode tags. But these brackets may in turn mess up code examples, unless the latter are put inside

CODE
[code]


tags.
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Christian J
post Sep 2 2006, 10:41 AM
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QUOTE(Liam Quinn @ Sep 2 2006, 05:34 PM) *

When composing a message, there is a Post Options section with an "Enable emoticons?" checkbox. If you uncheck that, then you should be able to type stuff like (cool.gif with no worries.


True, but the setting is not saved so one must check it every time.
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pandy
post Sep 2 2006, 04:22 PM
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QUOTE(Christian J @ Sep 2 2006, 05:41 PM) *

QUOTE(Liam Quinn @ Sep 2 2006, 05:34 PM) *

When composing a message, there is a Post Options section with an "Enable emoticons?" checkbox. If you uncheck that, then you should be able to type stuff like (B) with no worries.


True, but the setting is not saved so one must check it every time.

And they still turn up when quoted. laugh.gif
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John Pozadzides
post Sep 2 2006, 04:26 PM
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QUOTE(Christian J @ Sep 2 2006, 10:41 AM) *

QUOTE(Liam Quinn @ Sep 2 2006, 05:34 PM) *

When composing a message, there is a Post Options section with an "Enable emoticons?" checkbox. If you uncheck that, then you should be able to type stuff like (B) with no worries.

True, but the setting is not saved so one must check it every time.

Ok. The main problem before was that B) was triggering a smilie. That has now been changed (as you can see)...

Here are the smilie settings. If anyone has good reason to change one of the current settings please let me know.
Attached Image

Peter - I understand your loathing for smilies and am sorry that you are having difficulty disabling them. I'm looking into fixing that for you (and anyone else that disables them). However, I think that the general concensus regarding them is either positive or neutral at worst, so for that reason I'm not going to disable them across the board.

Hopefully you won't mind that so much once we get the bug fixed that shows the image link instead of nothing at all?

Thanks,

John
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Peter Evans
post Sep 2 2006, 11:28 PM
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But but but I did disable them! There are two problems, or anyway irritations. First, despite my disabling them, "b)" (yes, even lowercase) was autoconverted to a smiley ''after'' my previewing it as [non-smiley] "b)". (I'm delighted that Liam has said he's fixed this, and it certainly seems as if he has done so.) Secondly, smilies don't have the equivalent of ALT="": choose not to see them, and you don't see nothing but instead see ugly text strings. Oh yes, and thirdly I can't express my opinions of smilies in a satisfying, virile way because of the *beep* *beep* nannyware module!

This post has been edited by Peter Evans: Sep 2 2006, 11:29 PM
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Guest_Brian Chandler_*
post Sep 3 2006, 08:31 AM
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QUOTE
Peter - I understand your loathing for smilies and am sorry that you are having difficulty disabling them. I'm looking into fixing that for you (and anyone else that disables them). However, I think that the general concensus regarding them is either positive or neutral at worst, so for that reason I'm not going to disable them across the board.


Do you have any actual evidence of this "neutral/positive" opinion? I hate all this crap that encrusts "modern" computing. Why do we have to have crap? Does _anyone_ actually like it?

There is quite a lot more rubbish clogging up this interface - if I ask a question, how does it matter whether I ask it in Times Roman or Trebuchet? Get rid of the "font" nonsense. Then how nice it would be to get rid of all the dismal blobs: I have invested half a century practicing reading, so if something says "Insert link", I immediately know what it means - I'm tired of having to mouse around stupid blobs waiting for a popup hint.

Here's another suggestion: [] |> o#o <<(= @@

(See how much easier that is than English?)
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Guest
post Sep 3 2006, 08:33 AM
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QUOTE(Guest_Brian Chandler_* @ Sep 3 2006, 08:31 AM) *

Peter - I understand your loathing for smilies and am sorry that you are having difficulty disabling them. I'm looking into fixing that for you (and anyone else that disables them). However, I think that the general concensus regarding them is either positive or neutral at worst, so for that reason I'm not going to disable them across the board.

Do you have any actual evidence of this "neutral/positive" opinion? I hate all this crap that encrusts "modern" computing. Why do we have to have crap? Does _anyone_ actually like it?

There is quite a lot more rubbish clogging up this interface - if I ask a question, how does it matter whether I ask it in Times Roman or Trebuchet? Get rid of the "font" nonsense. Then how nice it would be to get rid of all the dismal blobs: I have invested half a century practicing reading, so if something says "Insert link", I immediately know what it means - I'm tired of having to mouse around stupid blobs waiting for a popup hint.

Here's another suggestion: [] |> o#o <<(= @@

(See how much easier that is than English?)


Incidentally, I clicked "Reply" last time, as I wanted to reply; the quotation appears to be completely unidentified (in the final post). As I am writing this, the quoted section is marked off by square-bracketed quote tags - I wonder what will happen in the final post.

Dunno, but this is pretty unimpressive, IMNNHO.
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Guest
post Sep 3 2006, 08:34 AM
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What is a "Fast reply"? Do I only get 20 seconds to type it, or something?
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Christian J
post Sep 3 2006, 10:07 AM
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QUOTE(Guest_Brian Chandler_* @ Sep 3 2006, 03:31 PM) *

Do you have any actual evidence of this "neutral/positive" opinion? I hate all this crap that encrusts "modern" computing. Why do we have to have crap? Does _anyone_ actually like it?


I don't. And even though it's tempting to use some of it if it's available, I find it quite tedious to check the BBCode syntax before posting (in addition to double-checking any real code examples you want to post).
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Christian J
post Sep 3 2006, 10:08 AM
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QUOTE(Guest @ Sep 3 2006, 03:34 PM) *

What is a "Fast reply"? Do I only get 20 seconds to type it, or something?


It's the same as Quick reply, and is explained in the help pages.
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jimlongo
post Sep 3 2006, 11:18 AM
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QUOTE

Do you have any actual evidence of this "neutral/positive" opinion? I hate all this crap that encrusts "modern" computing. Why do we have to have crap? Does _anyone_ actually like it?


Regardless of the "anti-modern" stance you avocate, I'd say it's a safe bet that many people do like it.
I don't have scientific evidence, but just look at the questions on these forums as opposed to the answers, look at YouTube or MySpace or whatever comes next.

You might as well rail against rock'n'roll or rap. ;-\

Regards,
jim

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Brian Chandler
post Sep 3 2006, 11:42 AM
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QUOTE(jimlongo @ Sep 4 2006, 01:18 AM) *

QUOTE

Do you have any actual evidence of this "neutral/positive" opinion? I hate all this crap that encrusts "modern" computing. Why do we have to have crap? Does _anyone_ actually like it?


Regardless of the "anti-modern" stance you avocate, I'd say it's a safe bet that many people do like it.
I don't have scientific evidence, but just look at the questions on these forums as opposed to the answers, look at YouTube or MySpace or whatever comes next.

You might as well rail against rock'n'roll or rap. ;-\

Regards,
jim


Well, OK, but who is this board for, and what stance does it take? A huge proportion of the questions are along the lines of "How do I inflict [insert particular sort of stupidity] on my visitors?" Since the answer always includes someone (not me in most cases), trying explain why [stupidity] is a bad idea, should we nonetheless implement the stupidity on this board just because questioners seem to like it?

Do you like having smilies? Do you think they make it easier for the people who post answers here to help questioners? Or do they (on balance) probably help questioners make their questions even harder to understand, so as to waste more of the answerers time?

Can we have actual answers from people saying "I like smilies" or "I don't like smilies", rather than lots of supposition about what "most people" might or might not like?
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Christian J
post Sep 3 2006, 01:00 PM
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QUOTE(Brian Chandler @ Sep 3 2006, 06:42 PM) *

A huge proportion of the questions are along the lines of "How do I inflict [insert particular sort of stupidity] on my visitors?" Since the answer always includes someone (not me in most cases), trying explain why [stupidity] is a bad idea


Correct. But what will happen if these people are made to feel unwelcome? Most likely they'll go somewhere else next time, and will have learned nothing. If we instead take the time to help them with their stupid web tricks (while gently pointing out the error of their ways) they might come back more times, and will gradually learn better habits.

QUOTE

should we nonetheless implement the stupidity on this board just because questioners seem to like it?


I guess the WDG has always aimed to reach a wide audience. So yes, if the intention is to attract larger numbers of people than previously one must probably adapt to their wishes.

Of course, if the forum becomes too obnoxius to the regulars there will be nobody left to help the newbies.

This post has been edited by Christian J: Sep 3 2006, 01:23 PM
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