Should Fluther support emoticons?

no. emoticons are the dark side.

emoticons lead to text speak, text speak leads to pain. and pain leads to the dark side.

Oh, dear.

What’s wrong with =) and =( and ;) and B====D ?

We don’t need pictures. Especially not of the last one.

No, Fluther has lots of great writers on here that know how to express emotions with words, not pictures.

I understand that your English may not be up to the level that their English is at and that’s okay, mine’s not either. however, you don’t have to resort to using emoticons. You could better your English instead.

ಠ_ಠ
that said, yes.

I love emoticons. They are sent by Odin. I want emoticons, and I want them now!

No, no, no! A pox on them.

Uh, richardhenry, what’s B====D?

NO!
I h8 emoticons!

Eh. I even hated writing the word just now.
;)

@syz A willy.

No, thank-ya.

No. But it would be cool if they let us have Decepticons.

If your grammar and vocab aren’t up to standards, then Fluther is one of the best places you can visit to improve on it, I’ve noticed.

A bunch of different people, opposing writing styles and ideals. Don’t be intimidated by the long winded responses and questions. The more you practice, the better you get. Coming from a guy that can hardly form a coherent sentence

Limiting yourself to a two word answer accompanied by a smiley face isn’t going to do you much good in the long run. Stick with it, yo. :P

@Deepness: May everyone here write as clearly and as well as you do, in your second language. ( a writer’s standard = signifies one writer; writers’ standards = two or more writers. A really petty mistake, all things considered.)

No, absolutely not. Emoticons would send us down the dark road to txtspk. I have no doubt of this. Once our standards slip, it’s all illegible.

No. If you can’t express yourself without resorting to little smiley faces Fluther is probably not for you.

Oh God, no. That said, many of us do use punctuation marks as emoticons, as @richardhenry pointed out.

I guess the general consus among Flutherers (Flutherites?) is a big, fat negative towards emoticons. That’s perfectly fine with me. I love reading all your answers to the many multitude of questions on this site. Great stuff! Great people!

@gailcalled Seriously, as scary as it sounds, English is my first language. I speak 4 or 5 other languages (some fluent, some not). I can’t really read or write (maybe a little) in the other languages. By the way, I know I can always count on you for a lesson in English. You’re fantastic!

@Lightlyseared You forgot to insert a comma after “faces”. =) Couldn’t help myself there. Come on. Lighten up. At least, I DoN’t TyP Lik3 Diz.

@Deepness That last sentence made me physically ill.

Sure why not?
I love those little faces =)

Although I am in agreement with everyone here that Fluther should not support emoticons (what a funky word that is), I’m still inclined now and then to add a smiley face at the end of some of my answers that are humorous or sarcastic (at least to me they are and I know they all don’t always go over as planned and sorry for that). And no to text speak also. Thank you for taking the time to read my answer. =)

Emoticons are the graffiti of the texting world. They are textual vandalism. Is that what you want.. a bunch of vandals running around fluther tearing up the streets?! Huh?! You want broken microsoft windows laying around everywhere and abandoned, dilapidated, and condemned structures scattered across the flutheresphere?! Do you want drug dealers to move in?! Why would you do that to our children? Why would you be so selfish and blind!? You’re ruining the galaxy! All life forms as we know them will be destroyed if we head down the emoticon path! There is only death and destruction! Death and destruction I say! Emoticons are killing us all and we have to stop them! We.. .ga! .. AAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Negative.
Emoticons are for chat rooms.

They will be misused. This is from another site I visit. Most of those are animated. It is horrible.

No.

NNNNNOOOOO!

(It is possible to be very expressive without them.)

Lurve to @NaturalMineralWater for the best rant so far. Brought tears to my eyes.

^^Not hyperbolic enough, I thought.

@Jeruba Ah angel tears. They alight on the ground and make babies sprout up and flowers dance like awkward kittens.

(this section to be read with the voice of Paul Giamatti or Adam Goldberg or even Woody Allen: my apologies in advance) Hmmm.. my attempt at being more hyperbolic has instead, no doubt, led you to believe that I bat… for the other team…. you know… the other team… the .. visitors.. *wink *wink… the visitors… over there… not the home team… but those guys.. over there.. which of course i don’t.. bat.. for them.. in fact I haven’t batted in quite a while… I’ve been on the bench.. you know… like.. on the bench.. as in.. i haven’t been batting… at all..it’s pretty sad really.. my life is a dismal hole.. there’s really not.. much chance of escape from it.. I… i i i .. it’s ironic.. you know.. how .. these.. kittens.. these damned kittens have made me contemplate the taking of my own life.. it’s crazy… how something so soft.. you know.. and now I want to die you see? that’s insane.. i would have never made that connection.. you know.. if it weren’t for .. ......... the angel tears….. Have you got any more coffee?

Nein! Nyet! Non! No no no no no! Thank you for listening.

Emoticons are excellent to prevent a message from being interpreted negatively (wrongly) when it wasn’t meant that way.

Then again, I don’t really need images. Especially not for a smiley a friend of mine like to use: (Y)

sigh

I just had a nightmare where Fluther had nested comments, signature phrases and pictures- animated GIFs even- after each post, and it was infested, infested I say, with emoticons! It was horrible. I never want to have to got through that again.

@Jayne don’t forget sig lines with a listing of your hardware and a quote from a movie.

If you really want emoticons, you can make your own with text.
:^)
;^)
S:^)
|^(

No need for the goofy animated ones or some such.

If you find that your vocab needs an extra boost there are other things you can do besides rely on an animated emotion. The more you read, the better you will write. And even more successful is; the more you write, the better you will write.

Meh. Probably not.

no, no, no. when i want to express that i mean something in a ‘smiley’ way, i make my own. i don’t want to see crappy little yellow things everywhere. or even jellies – though the idea sounds awesome when i first thought about it – would get so annoying after awhile. imagine, entire pages filled with little dr js. epic the first dozen times, but maybe not so much after the ninetieth.

At least it’s a good idea for the next April’s Fools :)

I agree with @bluefreedom: sometimes I use a smiley face :) to show that I’m just kidding or being friendly. (I try not to overuse it, but my sense of humor is so very dry that even in real life people can’t always tell if I’m joking or not. So there ya go.)

I hope I’m not annoying people too much!

However, those animated things are obnoxious.

Txt speak is also annoying.

animated emoticons are a form of screen pollution (right along with message signatures).

The non-moving emoticons… they’d be okay if they were in black and white.

I think emoticons are fun things, that encourage a person to half write an answer. I like Fluther because it is a thoughtful place to be. I can’t think with all those things bouncing around.