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Posted by: Peter Evans Aug 27 2006, 05:32 PM

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.

Posted by: pandy Aug 27 2006, 05:39 PM

You can turn them off in http://forums.htmlhelp.com/index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=04.

Posted by: Peter Evans Aug 27 2006, 06:20 PM

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.

Posted by: John Pozadzides Aug 28 2006, 12:36 AM

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

Posted by: Peter Evans Aug 28 2006, 06:25 AM

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=""'

Posted by: Peter Evans Sep 2 2006, 09:20 AM

Yes, smilies suck.

Consider http://forums.htmlhelp.com/index.php?showtopic=196. 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:

Preview showed me



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



Now I read:



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.

Posted by: Liam Quinn Sep 2 2006, 10:34 AM

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.

Posted by: Christian J Sep 2 2006, 10:38 AM

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

tags.

Posted by: Christian J Sep 2 2006, 10:41 AM

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

Posted by: pandy Sep 2 2006, 04:22 PM

And they still turn up when quoted.

Posted by: John Pozadzides Sep 2 2006, 04:26 PM

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.


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

Posted by: Peter Evans Sep 2 2006, 11:28 PM

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!

Posted by: Guest_Brian Chandler_* Sep 3 2006, 08:31 AM

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?)

Posted by: Guest Sep 3 2006, 08:33 AM

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.

Posted by: Guest Sep 3 2006, 08:34 AM

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

Posted by: Christian J Sep 3 2006, 10:07 AM

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).

Posted by: Christian J Sep 3 2006, 10:08 AM

It's the same as Quick reply, and is explained in the help pages.

Posted by: jimlongo Sep 3 2006, 11:18 AM

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

Posted by: Brian Chandler Sep 3 2006, 11:42 AM

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?

Posted by: Christian J Sep 3 2006, 01:00 PM

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.



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.

Posted by: John Pozadzides Sep 3 2006, 01:25 PM

This board is for beginning and advanced Web authors alike. The board does not take any stance on anything. It is merely a tool. The members of the WDG however wish, as always, to espouse the virtues of valid and accessible Web design.


Yes, actually I do. For example, I cannot tell -at all- what your emotional state is by reading through any of your posts. I don't know if you are calm, angry, or homicidal. I feel like you are mad, and as a result it makes me angry. Perhaps this is because of my father's Greek influence, or the fact that I'm a former US Marine. Nonetheless, your lack of desire to demonstrate emotion will illicit strong emotions in some people. My question is, if you could control that with a simple smiley, why wouldn't you?


Maybe. We are not dealing with machines. Humans have emotions. And most people are already afraid to approach "experts" when they feel ignorant of a subject. In real life you can let people know you are approachable by giving a simple smile and being courteous. But here the only equivalent is an emoticon. No matter how carefully you choose your words they can be misinterpreted 100 ways. But a smiley face is universally understood. So a shy person may feel more comfortable asking a question if they can impart some emoticon of humility or deference in the process. This is quite important in MANY cultures.


It appears to me that you are utilizing the Socratic method to lead the discussion. But I fail to see how someone adding a "shy" or a "smile" emoticon to a question can waste anyone's time or make a question unintelligible.


I personally find that smilies "humanize" discussions when used in moderation. So, yes. I like smilies.

John

PS - I would use a smiley here to let you know I'm not upset or anything, but I don't want to impose my emoticon on you.

Posted by: jimlongo Sep 3 2006, 02:12 PM

I fI hadn't already played provocateur enough today, I would start a poll . . . but you'd probably only get the votes from the d0zen or so regulars here :-(


I like them because I think it makes it a more welcome place for those seeking knowledge.

Posted by: Peter Evans Sep 4 2006, 02:11 AM

I don't like them. And that's because I suspect that the person using them either (a) is using them completely meaninglessly or (b) views my mental state as so unstable or immature as to risk throwing a tantrum or having a more serious breakdown if I'm not fed with the formulaic reassurance via smileys. I voluntarily read books, magazines articles, newspaper columns, etc., and never feel worried by the lack of smileys. I don't miss them in the predecessor of this forum, either.

Posted by: Brian Chandler Sep 4 2006, 06:52 AM

Ha!! Talk about freedom of expression - I just got the following error message:

"THE FOLLOWING ERROR(S) WERE FOUND
You have posted a message with more emoticons that this board allows. Please reduce the number of emoticons you've added to the message"


I tried to answer this with Usenet-style response, but there doesn't seem to be any easy way to answer in the middle of your post. This strikes me as a large disadvantage. I apparently have too limited experience of the brave new world of fancy quoting and smilies... LOL [insert 10 random smilies] Apart from anything else, I understand 'smiley', <g>, and 'unsmiley', but that's about all.

Well, I don't think smilies present an actual accessibility problem, but "font size"[font=Book Antiqua] and suchlike probably do.

Perhaps we just have to agree to differ - I'm afraid I really simply can't understand this next paragraph, for example:

JP> Yes, actually I do [like smilies]. For example, I cannot tell -at all- what your emotional state is by reading through any of your posts. I don't know if you are calm, angry, or homicidal. I feel like you are mad, and as a result it makes me angry. Perhaps this is because of my father's Greek influence, or the fact that I'm a former US Marine.

If I ask - "How do I cause CSS to do such and such in a robust way?" - my emotional state can be assumed to be that of a person who, not knowing how to cause CSS to do such and such in a robust way wishes to know how, and is in expectation of learning. What sort of emotion would one want to display along with such a question?

>> Nonetheless, your lack of desire to demonstrate emotion will illicit strong emotions in some people. My question is, if you could control that with a simple smiley, why wouldn't you?

Sorry, you've lost me there. I should _control_ other people's strong emotions caused by my not using smilies, by uh, using a smiley. Oh, OK:

me>> Do you think they make it easier for the people who post answers here to help questioners?

JP>> Maybe. We are not dealing with machines. Humans have emotions. And most people are already afraid to approach "experts" when they feel ignorant of a subject. In real life you can let people know you are approachable by giving a simple smile and being courteous. But here the only equivalent is an emoticon.

Leaves the total mystery of how people managed to write letters for millennia, doesn't it?

>>> No matter how carefully you choose your words they can be misinterpreted 100 ways. But a smiley face is universally understood. So a shy person may feel more comfortable asking a question if they can impart some emoticon of humility or deference in the process. This is quite important in MANY cultures.

But I can think of lots of ways one could help people ask questions - let them give themselves self-appointed status - "Expert", "Normal meddler", "Newbie", whatever. This might add a lot of information, and make it easier for the shy (not that the previous board's experience suggests to me that shyness is much of a problem). Smilies certainly won't help me understand a poster's emotional state, because I have a policy of ignoring blob as much as possible.

Posted by: John Pozadzides Sep 4 2006, 04:30 PM

In the Fast Reply box below the post, if you highlight any particular text and then select "Add Selected Text As Quote" it does exactly that. This would allow you to grab portions of each post and quote them one at a time.

Posted by: John Pozadzides Sep 4 2006, 04:31 PM

The limit to any post is 10 emoticons.

Posted by: John Pozadzides Sep 4 2006, 05:12 PM

I was not speaking hypothetically, but literally. The wording of your (Brian) previous post, as interpreted by me, was very hostile. You seemed to infer that all newbies are stupid, and that if we allow them to use smilies we too are stupid. You may re-read it and not see that, and that is fine. But, to me, there is a big difference between ignorance and stupidity. Were you joking? Was it poor word choice? Or were you trying to be mean? I don't know. (Rhetorical. No need to answer.)

Now, if it was your intention to cause me, or anyone else, to be angry then I guess there is no problem. The message was conveyed accurately. If however that was not your intention then you may wish to choose your words more carefully next time. The other option you have is to write the same exact thing and perhaps throw in a single little smiley face to let the reader know that you mean no harm.

It's up to you. I really don't care one way or another, but the bottom line is that using (or reading) a smilie never hurt anyone.

John

Posted by: Peter Evans Sep 5 2006, 02:03 AM

Graphic smileys -- "graphic" in the HTML sense; jpeg or whatever -- are what most irritate me. If they're disabled, people can still use strings such as colon-hyphen-parenthesis.

Another problem with smileys is that I sometimes don't know what they're supposed to refer to, so even when the mental state of the writer concerns me, I'm left confused. They describe the writer, of course; but does "pissed off" (for example) mean "pissed off with my continuing horrible predicament despite your generous attempts to offer advice for my escape from it", or "pissed off with the uselessness of your so-called advice, which did nothing to help in my predicament"? Et cetera et cetera.

That reminds me of a high point within Spinal Tap.

Posted by: John Pozadzides Sep 5 2006, 09:03 AM

True.


Yes. It is amazing that the number of ways in which humans are able to communicate is only surpassed by the number of ways in which we are able to mis-communicate.


Damn. I've got that movie, but have never actually watched it. So I always miss out on references like this!

John