I have to say that I think less is more when it comes to smilies. I would vote for a limited library, with some sort of internal consistency. For instance, the big sad1, big smiley and big wink seem to duplicate smaller existing ones and force the line spacing in messages in such a way that they dominate the layout. For coffeetime, cool and welcome they seem unique enough to make an exception.
I think the prime value of the forum is its well written helpful information. That should be primary. Smilies can have two purposes:
One is to explain an emotion that may not be clear from the text alone (wink = I'm joking, duhh = what was I thinking).
The other is to add a bit of zest - like a dash of Tabasco - but there we have to be careful it doesn't take over the entire dish and spoil it for others.
I can put the rest away then. No problem.
Ah Jeesh ya kill joy John ::) I liked the BBQ one , can we at least get the flush the toilet one and the BBQ one back ???
Come on :) ya big Galoot ;)
PEG, [noidea' ???
It reallly is a :( day eh Sass :(
The way I understand it, John thought our barbecue sauce had too much Tabasco in it, PEG. :)
I can understand that -- so now we will be somewhere between too much Tabasco and not enough. ::)
In fairness to John, I didn't allow him to preview them, but he did leave some, so we gained a little.
...and waiting for a ruling on your request....
So this is where we find out how benevolent "our" Caesar is!
Maybe -- I am an Administrator. John is The Administrator. :)
Possibly he would just let you keep your own copy and just pop it in through Photobucket when you had a real bad urge for a special smiley. [idea]
Seeing as he's come and gone , IE logged on and logged off , it is safe to assume Caesar HAS spoken.
So wheres the BIG thumbs DOWN frown?
Hey, I will let Glenn sort out the smilies issues. He's an administer and has every right to set it up the way he wants.
My point is that I don't want the critters to take over the informational content or overwhelm new users. We have to set this up for the person who has come here looking for hard information - NOT just for the entertainment of the most active posters. Otherwise we will end up just talking amongst ourselves. (And it might just be a cartoon!)
I like what Glenn is doing now with the "more" button. Keep the basics in view and then dig into the more colorful stuff as needed.
Now, I will shut up!
How about the toilet, Peg --- It was kind of small -- I could put it on the more button and you could flush it occasionally.
Don sent me some of the old YaBB2 Smileys. I probably will soon swap some of them for the sick smileys that came with this forum. How about some input on the normal smiley guy. Do we want the old YaBB static halfway decent smiley or they little guy with the moving lips-- this one? :)
...and, John.. You are right -- we don't quite need Looney tunes -- some color once in a while is fine with me though --- it was fun trying them about and some were pretty creative. So I will try to go with a few of the smaller special ones in the "more" section.
I think we have reached a pretty good set on the smilies now and probably won't change too much from what is here now -- not limiting it to that but fairly stabilized now. ;D