Why so many Smilies?

[Ghidora131]

Okay, so I made a post recently, and I wanted to add a smiley.

 

But what I received was a whole mountain of bizarre, unorganized smilies.

 

What I'm saying is maybe you should tone down the smilies a bit.

Like, for instance, you take out , or , or , or... you see what I'm going at, right?

Also, what about ? What if someone younger happens to run across that, and why does it even exist in the first place!?

 

That's all, I just think smilies on other sites are a bit more under control.

[Toa Smoke Monster]

Yeah, there are a lot of smilies to chose from. But I've only seen a select few used throughout the Forum with the exception of the Comedies Forum, which I've seen others used more often. I like that there are so many to chose from, because I never know when I will have the chance to use one of them to spice up one of my posts. 

[Aanchir]

Yeah, BZPower has a lot of annoying, stupid, wasteful smilies (some of which seem rude or spammy) that make it hard to find the useful ones. It's an issue that should be addressed. Maybe open a tracker ticket?

[Shadowhawk]

I like having tons of options, even if I never get a chance to use them.

 

Just sayin'.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Shadowhawk

[Valendale]

Eh, I prefer having them all. Each one has a use, even if that use is niche, and it's not too hard to scroll through them all.

[Ballom Nom Nom]

(some of which seem rude or spammy)

Nothing can beat the smooth condescension of the default winking emote.

 

But yeah, I agree that the collection of smilies appears excessively large. The only ones I really use myself are based on ASCII character combinations, and I don't think too much is needed beyond that.

 

~B~

Edited August 6, 2014 by Ballom

[Noxryn]

i usually just type out whatever emoticon i want to use, easier and no giant lists

 

and more options

 

=)

:> :> =>

 

five for the price of one

[Gatanui]

Nothing can beat the smooth condescension of the default winking emote.

It's not always used in a condescending way, you know.

 

-Gata

[Taka Nuvia]

I generally do like having a large amount of emoticons to choose from; in fact, I think some integral things are still missing, like some sort of hugging emote or stuff.

 

Maybe their display order could be rearranged, from most commonly used to least commonly used (I personally, for example, use way more often than * , yet the former is two pages behind the latter). Then again, one can always memorize the codes for their most-used emoticons, which is a lot faster than the search-and-click method, anway.  C:

 

 

*okay, more in pms rather than posts, still...

[Sybre]

It's never truly bothered me unless I need to find a specific emoticon that I don't know how to type. Otherwise, I just type them out, like the classic smiley face.

[Sumiki]

The number of emoticons I use has diminished over the years. To be honest, I'm not a fan of a lot of them ... 
 
Except Disco Stu III ( ), with his absurd JPG format and white background.
 
#discostu2015

[believe victims]

we can never lose this

 

 

it's a national treasure

[Sumiki]

we can never lose this

 

 

it's a national treasure

Oh wow I remember that thing. All the noobs put it in their comedies. It was as universal and unfunny as pie jokes. Edited August 9, 2014 by Sumiki

[Reznas]

Yeah, BZPower has a lot of annoying, stupid, wasteful smilies 

 

I'm sorry, but how can a smiley be wasteful exactly? It's not like they're taking up much bandwidth or any useful space, so how are they wasteful? Some of them might be annoying or silly, but wasteful is not the right word to use at all.

 

I personally love having a huge selection of emoticons to choose from. There's a smiley for nearly every common emotion, if not for most uncommon emotions. While some of the smileys might seem a bit spammy when used in certain conversations, it's not like they're really doing any harm. Hardly anyone ever uses the emoticon in place of actually cursing at someone. Usually, it's used in a comedic sense, not intended to put others down. Even if it were, it's better than a paragraph of insults, don't you think?

 

-Rez

[Lyichir]

 

Yeah, BZPower has a lot of annoying, stupid, wasteful smilies 

 

I'm sorry, but how can a smiley be wasteful exactly? It's not like they're taking up much bandwidth or any useful space, so how are they wasteful? Some of them might be annoying or silly, but wasteful is not the right word to use at all.

 

I personally love having a huge selection of emoticons to choose from. There's a smiley for nearly every common emotion, if not for most uncommon emotions. While some of the smileys might seem a bit spammy when used in certain conversations, it's not like they're really doing any harm. Hardly anyone ever uses the emoticon in place of actually cursing at someone. Usually, it's used in a comedic sense, not intended to put others down. Even if it were, it's better than a paragraph of insults, don't you think?

 

-Rez

 

Well, the main way in which they're "wasteful" is the amount of time it takes to browse them all if you're looking for a specific one. Unless you open the window that shows all of them (which I rarely like to do in this era of tabbed browsing), it can take ages to browse for the one you want. I just timed myself clicking through the full list—it took 15 seconds, and that's WITHOUT taking the time to actually look at which smileys are on each page.

 

They're also poorly organized (the very useful is all the way on the fifth page), visually inconsistent (looking at these— —you'd think they came from completely different sites), and redundant (look at these two or these ones ). I think the time to cull the less useful smilies (and/or replace them ALL with a visually compatible set) is long overdue.

[Reznas]

Well, the main way in which they're "wasteful" is the amount of time it takes to browse them all if you're looking for a specific one. Unless you open the window that shows all of them (which I rarely like to do in this era of tabbed browsing), it can take ages to browse for the one you want. I just timed myself clicking through the full list—it took 15 seconds, and that's WITHOUT taking the time to actually look at which smileys are on each page.

 

They're also poorly organized, visually inconsistent , and redundant. I think the time to cull the less useful smilies (and/or replace them ALL with a visually compatible set) is long overdue.

 

Those are two entirely irrelevant things. Something isn't wasteful because it takes a long time to view it. It's annoying, yes, when it takes 15 seconds+ to find your smiley, but not wasteful. Maybe it feels like a waste of your time, but I didn't get the impression that Aanchir was implying that.

 

I think a reorganization would actually be really nice. That's something I would totally advocate for. I do agree that it often takes a while to find a specific smiley. Especially when you miss it like five times before finding it.

 

-Rez

 

EDIT: Also, related to your second paragraph, I would say that variety isn't a bad thing. Maybe they are "visually inconsistent," but there are over a hundred different smileys. I personally like the inconsistency, because, as I said, it adds variety. Redundancy is probably unnecessary in the grand scheme of things, but in reality, the percentage of redundant smileys is pretty low. One could say that , , and are redundant because they all use the same face with a different emotion, but since you don't like visual inconsistency, it would probably be irritating to see with a different face than . Seems like visual inconsistency and redundancy can be very contradictory.

Edited August 9, 2014 by Reznas

[Black Six]

They don't seem very unorganized to me - in fact, I spent a long time putting them into similar groups and alphabetizing them by the emoticon text. All the generic smilies are together, and so are all the signs, and the flags, and the Kanohi, and the Bohrok, etc...

 

I suppose we could remove some, but obviously some people like them, so I don't foresee that happening.

[Reznas]

They don't seem very unorganized to me - in fact, I spent a long time putting them into similar groups and alphabetizing them by the emoticon text. All the generic smilies are together, and so are all the signs, and the flags, and the Kanohi, and the Bohrok, etc...

 

I suppose we could remove some, but obviously some people like them, so I don't foresee that happening.

 

I think the main problem others are having is that they don't use the "show all" page for smileys and don't see the coding for each of them. Personally, I always searched based on visuals on that page, but now that you've pointed out that they're alphabetically ordered for the most part, I don't foresee having any issues anymore. I digress on the reorganization idea.

 

-Rez

[Ballom Nom Nom]

 

we can never lose this

 

 

it's a national treasure

Oh wow I remember that thing. All the noobs put it in their comedies. It was as universal and unfunny as pie jokes.

 

It's my understanding that most comedies are at least 80% inane emoticons.

 

~B~

[Taka Nuvia]

 

They don't seem very unorganized to me - in fact, I spent a long time putting them into similar groups and alphabetizing them by the emoticon text. All the generic smilies are together, and so are all the signs, and the flags, and the Kanohi, and the Bohrok, etc...

 

I suppose we could remove some, but obviously some people like them, so I don't foresee that happening.

 

I think the main problem others are having is that they don't use the "show all" page for smileys and don't see the coding for each of them. Personally, I always searched based on visuals on that page, but now that you've pointed out that they're alphabetically ordered for the most part, I don't foresee having any issues anymore. I digress on the reorganization idea.

 

-Rez

 

 

"Show All" is indeed the best method if one wants to find a specific emoticon quickly. Especially if you have partial memory of what the code looked like... Otherwise, you can also see the coding if you hover the smileys with the cursor. ^^

[Adventurer]

I'd rather add features to the site than take away my precious smilies.

 

That being said I do think the wink smiley could use a more friendly alternative.

[Reya]

I don't see why we would need to remove them. They are not hurting anyone and most people at one stage just spammed them which was fun at the time ( ). Alot of those emoticons have been there for atleast 10 years. They are part of the site's history. We already lost the archives so it would be better to keep what history we have left rather than try get rid of more.

[fishers64]

I like the smilies.  

 

Anyway, I'm not sure what most of them are doing there, but it's not too hard to remember the code for the ones I usually use, so I hardly look at that ridiculous list anyway. Most strike me as somewhat historic and take away from any serious conversation, so I don't use them, but that's hardly a vote for their removal. 

 

And why is the emote condescending again? I mean, it's smiling, not angry, so I thought it said "it's me, you know" type thing. (Personally, I find very little use for it. )

[believe victims]

And why is the emote condescending again? I mean, it's smiling, not angry, so I thought it said "it's me, you know" type thing. (Personally, I find very little use for it. )

 

It depends on the context used. Several members its associated with have a habit of being condescending, so that's probably where that comes in.

[fishers64]

 

And why is the emote condescending again? I mean, it's smiling, not angry, so I thought it said "it's me, you know" type thing. (Personally, I find very little use for it. )

 

It depends on the context used. Several members its associated with have a habit of being condescending, so that's probably where that comes in.

 

It seems that those members have largely left BZPower at this point. I don't notice a lot of people being condescending around here, and the few I think might be never use that emote.

[MrSciFiGuy]

Most of the smileys are default from the forum board. I think these should be more apparent since they fit the site:          Plus, they are cool

[believe victims]

Most of the smileys are default from the forum board. I think these should be more apparent since they fit the site:          Plus, they are cool

 

They're also almost useless, though. Most smileys are used to convey an emotion, and not many people wish to convey the emotion "turning into a Bohrok".

[Bfahome]

 

Most of the smileys are default from the forum board. I think these should be more apparent since they fit the site:          Plus, they are cool

 

They're also almost useless, though. Most smileys are used to convey an emotion, and not many people wish to convey the emotion "turning into a Bohrok".

 

Are you kidding?  I feel like that all the time.

[Ballom Nom Nom]

 

And why is the emote condescending again? I mean, it's smiling, not angry, so I thought it said "it's me, you know" type thing. (Personally, I find very little use for it. )

 

It depends on the context used. Several members its associated with have a habit of being condescending, so that's probably where that comes in.

 

Also, we've had an alternative, unambiguously non-condescending winking emote for the entire time I've been on BZP, at least. Use   instead of . Problem solved!

 

~B~

Edited August 12, 2014 by Ballom

[Uncle K.]

The normal wink emote is totally different than the psychotwitch....

 

I hardly ever use them but if they go away it would be pretty devastating. I just got really alarmed at the possibility they get deleted. Who can forget the ever popular ?  A lot of them are almost too inane, ( ) but also well imprinted into our hearts and memories.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Funcle K.

[Banana Gunz]

Having a good variety of emoticons is always good, but it seems like there are some that are just plain use-less (no-offense). The amount of pages of emoticons is a bit absurd to how many a person actually needs.

 

An emoticon should be used to add some sort of light emotion to a sentence to make it feel more natural, like the  after saying something sarcastic.

But I could never see where in a conversation you would ever need to use      , or many others. Some of them are cute but most are just excessive and not needed at all, and many have virtually the same use like  and the much more popular, better looking and more practical  . 

 

I also agree that there is some inconsistency with the emoticons. I feel that it would look better if they were all based around the same general style of the ones used on the first page. They all have a nice variety of emotions, look good, and aren't very excessive.

 

But that's just my opinion. I feel like its something that ought to be addressed sometime but isn't a big deal if it isn't. I just ignore the ones I will never use.

[fishers64]

I used   not too long ago. It's not as practical as , but it does have a use.