Question about smilies...

[mhennessy]

Hi All,

Not a big deal, but I thought I'd ask. I did search - I couldn't see an obvious answer to this.

If you manually type a colon, hyphen and a close bracket - the standard way to make a simple smiley - this forum uses this:

But this smiley, with the rolling eyes, could be misinterpreted at "sarcasm". Such an image is used for just that on most other forums. Many years ago, someone (no longer a member here) totally misunderstood one of my posts for that reason. Ever so occasionally, I see that smiley and have to wonder if the poster chose it (from the right of the editor window) deliberately, or merely intended a "standard" smiley, and missed it during the preview and/or editing "window"...

Would it be possible to alter this? As far as I can see, it would be simply a case of changing the .GIF. In fact, I note that the GIF is called "rolleyes.gif", and the title says "Roll Eyes", so perhaps it would be more logical to change the "mapping" that joins a "colon, hyphen and close-bracket" to a particular smiley.

If one types a colon followed by a close-bracket, that maps to a standard smiley that one would expect when typing the version with a hyphen, so I guess that's the best one to map to?

Obviously, if this mapping was changed somehow (no idea how easy/difficult that is with vBulletin), then existing posts will get this change. But I find it hard to imagine that people on this forum would actively want to use "Roll Eyes", with the potential for sarcasm to be read into it - I might be wrong, but guess that most uses of "Roll Eyes" are unintentional.

As I say, no big deal. But interested to know if anyone else has noticed (or fallen foul of) this minor quirk.

All the best,

Mark

[Anthony Thomas]

Try choosing "Go Advanced" and choose the desired smiley from the menu on the right. Diferent platforms use different smileys.
Tony

[mhennessy]

Yes, I'm very aware of that - indeed I mentioned that above. But many people - myself included - will manually type a smiley because it's faster than reaching for the mouse, and we are be used to typing smilies manually in other systems. It is possible to miss the "rolling eye" animation when you preview (or just post) the message.

I agree that different systems vary, but I've yet to see another medium where "colon, hyphen, close-bracket" means "roll eyes". This smiley was one of the first to be used back in the mists of time, and I'm not aware that its meaning has ever changed.

Having just quickly searched around, another definition of "roll eyes" is "to indicate the person is annoyed or frustrated by something". Perhaps worse than "sarcasm", but either way, it's still a negative emotion.

In fairness, I am used to making an exception for this forum - it's been this way for as long as I've been a member and probably much more again - but as I say, occasionally I find myself wondering just what emotion a person was trying to convey, as it's not always obvious from the text.

Diferent platforms use different smileys.

Same as the problem with unit symbols (ohm mu milli etc.). In my opinion best to spell them out (no problem with fonts then). When it comes to graphic smileys, they are only a bit of fun and as in the units confusion perhaps

another definition of "roll eyes" is "to indicate the person is annoyed or frustrated by something"

may be better said as "I am a bit annoyed" then it is all clear.

[Paul Stenning]

Originally Posted by mhennessy

Would it be possible to alter this? As far as I can see, it would be simply a case of changing the .GIF. In fact, I note that the GIF is called "rolleyes.gif", and the title says "Roll Eyes", so perhaps it would be more logical to change the "mapping" that joins a "colon, hyphen and close-bracket" to a particular smiley.

If we were to change the character combination of a smilie it would affect every post where it has been used, or where the new combination had been used with a different intention. So we won't be changing the character combinations for any existing smilies, and have no intention of adding any more.

You can use the preview and even the 15 minute edit window to correct any unintentional smilie problems or other errors.

[mhennessy]

No worries. I did acknowledge in the question that this would affect existing posts, and I also knew that it almost certainly wouldn't be changed.

However, my point stands - since I first made the mistake all those years ago, I'm very aware of the potential for confusion, and whenever I see the "Roll Eyes" emoticon, I find myself wandering if that's what the author really intended. I haven't any hard data as to frequency, but I'm convinced that unintentional use of "Roll Eyes" definitely happens. In the future, if I suspect such a thing in a thread I'm participating in, I'll simply seek clarification from the author.

Meanwhile, if nothing else, hopefully this raises awareness of this minor issue.

All the best,

Mark

PS: I certainly wasn't suggesting that we add more. I think that smilies are over-used on many forums, and like the fact we only have a few here. I'd vote for less, not more.

[Dickie]

Isn't this another example where the use of emoticons, acronyms, textspeak, and other abbreviations requires great care? Their use can make understanding worse rather than better. Any coding system requires that both the sender and receiver use the same code book!

[Amraduk]

Originally Posted by mhennessy

If you manually type a colon, hyphen and a close bracket - the standard way to make a simple smiley - this forum uses this:

Just leave out the hyphen, thus: That gives you a 'normal' smiley, and is the way most websites do it.

Regards,

Dave.

[David G4EBT]

Originally Posted by mhennessy

I haven't any hard data as to frequency, but I'm convinced that unintentional use of "Roll Eyes" definitely happens. In the future, if I suspect such a thing in a thread I'm participating in, I'll simply seek clarification from the author.
Meanwhile, if nothing else, hopefully this raises awareness of this minor issue.

I must admit that although I'm not a fan of the prolific use of emoticons, about the only one that I do use is colon/dash/close brackets, which as you say Mark, appears in a different form on here and may mean different things to different people - indeed I'd assumed that it was self-deprecating as in 'isn't that just typical of a numpty like me'? I'd certainly not envisaged that it had negative connotations towards others and could be misconstrued as such, so I'll knock it in the head. I think that the over-use of emoticons and exclamation marks - while doubtless meant by the writer to be friendly, informal and 'chummy' rather than stuffy - can become an irritant. OK in an e-mail perhaps or on a social networking site, but not always welcome on a forum where people want to be taken seriously.

[mhennessy]

Originally Posted by Amraduk

Just leave out the hyphen, thus: That gives you a 'normal' smiley, and is the way most websites do it.

Indeed - I said exactly that in my original post

(Now, was "Roll Eyes" intentional or not? )

I agree that "colon and close-bracket" is another, newer way to do it, but as I said earlier, I have never seen another system anywhere that translates colon, hyphen and close-bracket into anything other than a smiley. Never. It's just a shame that it doesn't translate into a more benign emoticon.

The "classic" smiley is older than many people realise - here's a well-known reference to it in 1982: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/Orig-Smiley.htm

[mhennessy]

Originally Posted by David G4EBT

I think that the over-use of emoticons and exclamation marks - while doubtless meant by the writer to be friendly, informal and 'chummy' rather than stuffy - can become an irritant. OK in an e-mail perhaps or on a social networking site, but not always welcome on a forum where people want to be taken seriously.

Hi David,

I agree - I do believe that this forum greatly benefits from the generally restrained use of emoticons. Indeed, if you try to use more than 5 in a message, the system gently asks you to reconsider. A Good Thing, especially for the more "meaty" messages.

[Amraduk]

Originally Posted by mhennessy

Indeed - I said exactly that in my original post

Apologies, I missed that!

Regards,

Dave.

[Skywave]

Originally Posted by mhennessy

If you manually type a colon, hyphen and a close bracket - the standard way to make a simple smiley - this forum uses this:
But this smiley, with the rolling eyes, could be misinterpreted at "sarcasm".

Yes, a gesture of sarcasm is what I usually interpret it to mean. But 'sarcasm' comes in various shades - from that of a polite 'nudge - wink' to an outright attempt to humiliate the person it is intended for.

Example 1.
Poster: "Would you believe this? I made the same mistake yet again!"
Responder: "Yes, that's quite believable from reading your earlier posts where you have said that before"
Offence is clearly not intended. The responder is, in effect, agreeing with the poster.

Example 2.
Poster: "After the bang and when the smoke had cleared, I realised it was intended for 115-v.a.c. mains."
Responder: "Yeah - that was really a clever thing to do, wasn't it?"
Clearly an attempt to make the poster look silly and to add to his humiliation.

And then there is the matter of to whom that smiley is intended: it could be the writer aiming at him or herself. Examples 1 and 2 are clearly between poster and respondent. But occasionally, a poster may attempt to poke fun at himself.

Example 3.
"Then I realised that I was having a senior moment!"
The poster is obviously referring to himself and no-one else.

So it is clear that this smiley has to be used with care to avoid unintended interpretation. And I suggest that the best method of achieving that is to use it (if at all) only after a sentence when the meaning of that sentence and its intended target is made perfectly clear by the text in that preceding sentence.

Failing that, the engineer's old motto springs to mind:
"If in doubt, leave it out!"

Al.

[Mike Phelan]

I think we've , , or even now.

Smilingly closing thread before we all succumb to lockjaw.