A Conversation for The Campaign for Real Conversation

I disagree...

Post 1

Titania (gone for lunch)

...with the first point:


Every time you use a smiley, it means: "I am so illiterate that I am unable to communicate this particular aspect/element of my message using mere words."


Personally, I use the occasional smiley to emphasize what ever it is that I'm trying to express in simple text.

A smiley is also a way to show people how your comment is meant to be taken - there is a huge difference between these two examples:

You really don't get it, do you?smiley - tongueout (teasing someone, joking)

You really don't get it, do you?smiley - cross (fed up with a person who doesn't even bother to try and get things right despite more than one attempt to explain it)

I guess one *could* add a description using text to explain how the comment should be taken, but that seems a lengthy procedure


I disagree...

Post 2

Traveller in Time Reporting Bugs -o-o- Broken the chain of Pliny -o-o- Hired

Traveller in Time smiley - tit on his head
"Well, this is the one of those rare events, I agree with both.

An image can say more then a thousand words. However some manage to go even more cryptic then I manage, just using one single smiley - erm. "


I disagree...

Post 3

Mina

I disagree too. Well said Titania! smiley - applause

Smileys are smiley - giftsmiley - gift to be treasured. Many a party would have fallen flat without a smiley - stiffdrink and a smiley - diva. Or eevn the odd smiley - handbag.

Go Smileys! smiley - biggrin


I disagree...

Post 4

Traveller in Time Reporting Bugs -o-o- Broken the chain of Pliny -o-o- Hired

Parrobot
"Fly!, Little wuffle fly! "


I disagree...

Post 5

Titania (gone for lunch)

But I have to admit that there are some conversations that drive me absolutely nuts - conversations that are merely an exchange of various smilies, with *very* little text added, if at all...

What really annoys me is when a thread that started out quite promising is being taken over by the 'exchange-as-many-smilies-as-possible' people - it even happened to one of my own journals!smiley - bleep

So, to some extent, I can understand the frustration of the researcher who wrote this entry...


Mina, I hope that you won't mind too much if Whisky and I manage to turn some of your journals into food fights - if you do, just yell 'Stop!'


I disagree...

Post 6

Mina

No problem Titania, great fun to watch!

I like using smileys, because the few times that I don't make Whisky's blood run cold. smiley - winkeye


I disagree...

Post 7

IMSoP - Safely transferred to the 5th (or 6th?) h2g2 login system

I'm going to go a bit further than the rest of you have done so far, and challenge the very substance of the statement:

"Every time you use a smiley, it means: "Either I am so illiterate that I am unable to communicate this ... using mere words, or I am merely too lazy to do so."

My counter-argument is this: smiley - devil
What are words? Are they not meagre attempts, evolved over time, to use the facilities physically available to us to attempt to communicate aspects of our internal psychological state which would otherwise remain secret? Furthermore, is writing not merely an attempt to record the most important aspects of much older systems of communication which were far more expressive but could not "travel" in time and space in the way that writing can? And is it not true that in truly expressive face-to-face speech, we communicate not only with words but with gestures, expressions, intonations, and countless subtleties of which we are not even aware?

If all of the above is true, then why should we limit ourselves, in the development of new means of communication, to using only words, simply because the technologies are based primarily around written text? When smileys were first used (on Usenet, I believe) they were immediately recognised as filling a gap which the cold hard, clear-cut world of computer-based communication had left. Even a letter lets you use different hand-writing, or coloured ink, or little doodles in the margins... That there are now a wide range of smileys here on h2g2 merely shows that there are a wide range of things people want to express *over and above* the words they are using.


Plus, they look pretty! smiley - tongueout
Actually, I do find long passages of text easier to read when they're broken up by something less... texty. The odd smiley - popcorn or smiley - yikes fits the bill nicely, IMHO.

And of course, to get right down to it - in many cases, who cares? Whether or not it was intended to be so, a large amount of this site is now used merely as a forum for general social interaction. Some of this is very trivial interaction. I see this as no particularly harmful thing, and indeed many friendships, and even the odd marriage, have blossomed from it. So smiley - spork to you! smiley - winkeye

smiley - erm[IMSoP]smiley - geek


I disagree...

Post 8

Titania (gone for lunch)

Completely off topic, just out of curiousity - how did you lot manage to find your way here?smiley - tongueout

I'm trying to remember how I found this entry myself, and my best guess is that I found it on the <./>Info</.> page - a page that I consult regularly whenever I find the conversations that I'm subscribed to growing a bit slow...

...but they never actually *stay* quiet, do they?smiley - yikessmiley - run


I disagree...

Post 9

IMSoP - Safely transferred to the 5th (or 6th?) h2g2 login system

smiley - laugh
First, to answer Titania's off-topic question: I found it via a link posted to a blog referenced on the <./>Askh2g2</.> thread F19585?thread=418227 which led me to U7, from whose conversation list the subject of F1802808?thread=414117 caught my eye, which is on the same forum as F1802808?thread=414352 - and from either there or U47 I then followed the link to A2580932 in the forum of which this thread sits.

So, y'know just surfing, really! smiley - winkeye
smiley - surfer

And secondly, boy am I verbose and a little OTT when I know I should be doing something else!? Basically, my post above contains 3 justifiable uses of smileys:
smiley - star As an online equivalent "paralinguistic features" (Psych. smiley - geek alert) which express things which "mere words" can't, or can't easily.
smiley - star To break up blocks of text, making it easier on the eye.
smiley - star As a fun way of mucking around for the sake of social interaction; not appropriate everywhere, granted, but where would "No! No! No!" be without the smiley - sporks and smiley - monsters? smiley - winkeye

And contrary to my rather cocky opening sentence, these *are* the same points other people have made, I just made them more, um, verbosely... smiley - sorry


I disagree...

Post 10

Traveller in Time Reporting Bugs -o-o- Broken the chain of Pliny -o-o- Hired

Traveller in Time smiley - tit on his head
"But he made the code!
At least he was there when they wrote the code to let us use the smilies in the first place.
He also provided the code for the helicopter wings.
< A2578188 >
"


I disagree...

Post 11

clzoomer- a bit woobly

smiley - applause

As a dabbler in the visual arts I can only say that restricting oneself to words alone in a medium that provides more is sad. For heaven's sake! The very screen you are looking at is alive with luminous pixels and a giant palette of colour. I can only add:

You really don't get it, do you?smiley - bigeyes

You really don't get it, do you?smiley - rofl

You really don't get it, do you?smiley - geek

You really don't get it, do you?smiley - hug

You really don't get it, do you?smiley - smooch


I disagree...

Post 12

abbi normal "Putting on the Ritz" with Dr Frankenstein

I find things easier to read and more interesting to look at smiley - artistwhen smileys are present.

You can also find a post you have read faster smiley - star
I find a single smiley - roseor smiley - hug quite appropriate at times.

Now for my usual topic drift....
How come the word smileys is not spelled smilies?smiley - doh
I do not get that!


I disagree...

Post 13

clzoomer- a bit woobly

You really get it, don't you! smiley - biggrin

I guess because it looks too much like similies? I dunno, just a guess. I'm sure a pedant or two will show up to let us know.

smiley - cheers


I disagree...

Post 14

IMSoP - Safely transferred to the 5th (or 6th?) h2g2 login system

"I'm sure a pedant or two will show up": You called?

Actually, I think it's just cos the e gets in the way - as in, if it was "smily", the 'y' would turn into 'ies', but cos it's got an 'ey' you can't really do that. "Smileies" would just be silly, so we just stick with "smileys". smiley - biggrin

That, and it's a silly made-up word that no-one knows how to spell anyway. Hence you can click on <./>Smiley</.>, <./>Smileys</.> or <./>Smilies</.> and they'll all take you to A155909 And some people call them emoticons, but that's just silly, cos it sounds smiley - yuksmiley - tongueout

smiley - erm[IMSoP]smiley - geek


I disagree...

Post 15

TRiG (Ireland) A dog, so bade in office

I use few <./>smileys</.>, but I like having them available. Smileys in text can make it hard to read for many people, so I usually use them only on a line by themselves, to break up long postings into paragraphs. I used to use a cup of tea for this, to suggest taking a break, but I've now switched to the more standard popcorn.

smiley - teasmiley - popcorn

I also usually sign my posts (unless they are very short) and follow the signature with a smiley, which goes some way to reflecting the mood of the post. My standard is the simple smiley itself, but I occasionally use something a little different.

smiley - smiley

(I got here from a link to this article in the journal of Kea, where I was lurking.)

smiley - lurk

TRiG.smiley - surfer


I disagree...

Post 16

six7s

TRiG: >> Smileys in text can make it hard to read for many people

How? / Why? / Who? /etc


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