Stormlight

It's not always that simple. You can learn a language like English to the point where you can interact reasonably well on a message board. However when it comes to the finer points (like irony or sarcasm) we non-English speakers are often left guessing and ultimately misunderstanding the other persons intentions. Especially since many native English speakers write like they speak.

Soooo, I'd rather have people continue using smilies. Makes it easier for me.

Heathen Dawn

My only complaint about IIDB smilies is that there are too few of them. I’ve been spoiled by the richness that is found on Mystic Wicks Pagan Forums.

Porky Pine

I find it a little ironic that Howard uses a smilie to support Oxidizing Material.

Porky (Being All-Too-Clever) Pine

Straight Hate

Yeah, smilies ruin my life as well. How on Earth is it that I'm able to cope? The true struggle of a 21st century male.

Pussy Vikings and their swords. bah!

Octokun

I understand your point about smiles but I'd worry more about "PE0PL3 WHO TOK LIEK THIS. W00t".

Howard

People have been successfully using written communications for thousands of years without the aid of smilies. If you can write intelligibly you don’t need them.

ju'iblex

well, we could claim that ideographic languages are just big smiley languages.

Gurdur

uh ?
The Mayan script was a pictoglyph one, yes ?
The Chinese script being ideographic; the Latin script we use here was originally derived from Phonecian or Greek pictoglyphs, no ? The letter "A" representing a bull's head, etc..

IOW, smilies predated and accompanied writing scripts.

Every smiley used is a tribute to the origins of writing !

Gurdur

Damn, when I started writing my reply just above, yours had not yet appeared.
I was delayed by my search for a smiley.

ju'iblex

you know i do it just to annoy you.