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DoomUK

Emoticons in Post Hell

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Maybe this is an indication that I spend too much time on here, but I've made yet another completely stupid discovery about Doomworld.

Why do emoticons show up like this in Post Hell but nowhere else on the forums?

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Because whoever setup the seperate theme for that subforum didnt bother to switch the emoticons off?

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Technician said:

The lack of emoticons is just one of the reasons I like this place.

Likewise. I'm just passingly curious why they weren't disabled for PH, or whether this was a deliberate choice or an accidental one.

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Personally, I like emoticons to express complex emotions such as and

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Planky said:

Because whoever setup the seperate theme for that subforum didnt bother to switch the emoticons off?

Other way around.

It's supposed to be hell, after all.

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my avatar is an emoticon meant to reflect my obnoxious idiocy or something stupid along those lines i dunno

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I figured this out years ago. It used to baffle me reading through post hell and seeing all these smileys yet never seeing any on the actual forums. Enough reading led me to realizing they had been disabled on all forums, save for Post Hell.

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Hell is a place where emoticons are enabled.

The settings on Doomworld have been configured pretty carefully to try to avoid stupid shit like this as much as possible. You'll notice that not only are emoticons off, there are no signatures either. Avatars are allowed but there's a strict limit on their size, and at one point images weren't enabled either (I think this has changed over time: at one point the ability to post images was turned on, but others had to enable an option to be able to see them; now I think everyone just sees images?)

The settings were set by Linguica when he started the forums, and I think he made a good choice. It sets a tone and focuses the forum on discussion and text, rather than distracting graphical nonsense. There are so many other forums that are just incredibly unpleasant to read because every single member has a page long signature with some giant picture of their favorite pop star or whatever. I'm really glad that Doomworld isn't like that.

Suffice it to say that Post Hell is the opposite of that: bright colors, background music and animated flame gifs. Emoticons fit in nicely with that scheme. Remember that Post Hell is where all the stupid shit is sent.

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chopkinsca said:

This is the problem with emoticons on a dark forum theme. They get these three white pixels on each corner.

fraggle said:

there are no signatures either.

Actually there are. It's just that most people don't use them.

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Gez said:

Actually there are. It's just that most people don't use them.

Fair point, you're right. But images in signatures don't work, and even in plain text, I'd hope that large signatures would be frowned on. The majority of members don't even have signatures.

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I'm genuinely confused. Why the emoticon hate? Do they not convey the meaning or attitude of a sentence as well as textual smileys do?

"Great screenshots, dude! "
"Great screenshots, dude! :)"

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Code and phone numbers with "8)" in them look really dumb when the forum transforms them into little sunglasses dudes...

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Reasons there are code tags. Phone number shouldn't have the problem because parentheses tend to enclose groups of numbers like in area codes and those won't get converted.

I like emoticons too. What I don't like is huge image signatures and epileptic-baiting avatars. This place does a good job keeping avatars in check.

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Jokes aside, I think simple emoticons help add a bit of personality to posts. They are a little more friendly than their plain text counterparts. A few basic ones wouldn't be the death of this community.

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While I generally like Sigs and Avatars for Customization and Personality, I still like how Doomworld there is a lack of such and small Avatars, as it keeps everything rather neat and tidy, and just makes everything look cleaner. Doom is serious shit, so we all need to have our Business attire on when discussing it.

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fraggle said:

The settings on Doomworld have been configured pretty carefully to try to avoid stupid shit like this as much as possible.

Wow, you (the management) are so single minded about this. Every one of you considers emoticons the scum of forums, while in other places they're accepted without them turning into image spam fests, since they too have moderation. I do prefer plain text emoticons though, because they look more standard: the :P sign can have any kind of expression in a face picture (pokerface tongue? smiling tongue?), warping whatever the author wanted to say.

Nomad said:

Personally, I like emoticons to express complex emotions such as

I hope that wasn't inspired by a German style toilet. Those things are horrible and probably are required in hell.

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That toilet emoticon reminds me of some comic book where was this guy who couldn't stop.. and at the end of the comic book there was very little guy visible anymore. This comic book also had some other stories, and this poop comic appeared between them.. I can't quite remember what happend in the end, but it is possible that the poop started to fill the other stories in the comic book too, even they weren't exaclty related.

I think the text smileys are funnier. Often the yellow faced smileys make me want to smash the person using them into small piles of putrid debris... but what about this: ☺

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Nomad said:

Jokes aside, I think simple emoticons help add a bit of personality to posts. They are a little more friendly than their plain text counterparts. A few basic ones wouldn't be the death of this community.

No thank you.

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I like that these forums for the most part aren't littered with the stupid shit I see on most forums. Non image emotes work just as well, and look cleaner in my opinion. :D

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chopkinsca said:

I like that these forums for the most part aren't littered with the stupid shit I see on most forums. Non image emotes work just as well, and look cleaner in my opinion. :D

Agreed. I come from forums that allow large avatars, signatures, 1920x1080+ images, and a plethora of obnoxious emoticons.

Having spent the past couple of months regularly browsing this forum, I have no trouble admitting that I much prefer this forum's approach to such things.

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Jimmy91 said:

I'm genuinely confused. Why the emoticon hate? Do they not convey the meaning or attitude of a sentence as well as textual smileys do?

Call me a snob, but my main objection would be the tone it creates. Graphical emoticons are essentially cartoons, and cartoons are, for the most part, targeted at children. That has an effect on the appearance and feel of the forums that use them, one that I'd rather not see on Doomworld.

If you want an analogy, you might compare it to clubs that have dress codes.

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I found it weird that emoticons wouldn't appear in the normal forums but would appear in Post Hell. The first time I saw emoticons in Post Hell rather than in the normal forums looked pretty weird to me.

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When I'm actually talking with someone online, I'll use emoticons pretty heavily. Part of it is a substitute for the non-verbal communication you don't see when talking with text. Since forums are a slightly different type of communication, I avoid using emoticons for the most part.

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