My problem with emoticons is mainly a design based one, they usually don't blend in very good with interfaces. If the design is done properly and there are clear options for enabling/disabling them I'm totally OK with them.

Hm, the browsers' inter pixel rendering differ a lot, I tried to design some graphical emoticons using html/css but the results were different with zoom levels and browsers. Maybe in the bright future of web technologies ;)

@goob A lot of services use emojis now. These are symbols that can be copy-pasted into a field either manually by the user or from a pop-up menu. They can be displayed in "plain" form or replaced by a graphic. I have successfully copy-pasted most of these into a text editor (Geany), which indicates that they are compatible with any service or system utilizing modern character sets.
http://getemoji.com/
😄 😃 😀 😊 ☺ 😉 😍 😘 😚 😗 😙 😜 😝 😛 😳 😁 😔 😌 😒 😞 😣 😢 😂 😭 😪 😥 😰 😅 😓 😩

Which of my comments is that a reply to? It doesn't seem to match any of my comments.

ps: I bloody hate emoji.

@goob I was replying to your last comment. Anyway, if you don't want to see emojis, they would be incredibly easy to filter out, because they're just characters.

OK, thanks. That wasn't clear.

I realise I personally can filter out characters, or images from a certain source, by using browser extensions and the like (which I already do). However, I think if Diaspora chooses to support smileys, it should also offer users an easy way to disable them from their streams from within Diaspora's own UI. That was the point I was making.

@goob Oh, sure, I agree. Users should be able to turn off features that they don't like. Sorry if I wasn't clear about that.

No problem. We've understood each other in the end!

Currently, there's already a kind of smiley support in the publisher. "<3", for exmple is translated to ♥

That's not too bad, I guess, because if you wanted to write "c<3" without it becoming "c♥" , you can just put a space in between the two characters. Having escape characters is still much better, because they don't appear in the output the way a space does.

Having excpe caracters is too much complicated imho. It's here, the same reservations à have on a full support of the markdow stadard. A simple exemple is the requirement too put two spaces beforestarting a new line. This is as un-intuitive as possible. I really think we should do some compromises for the comfort of the user, knowing that everyone has a background and some basic reflexes. To me, we should adapt a bit to these basic reflexes...

I agree, we need icons and an option to enable or disable them.

Emoticons are not just things "kikoolol" but really a way to show an emotion or state of mind. I also think it would be a good idea to discuss added to the interface on D *. Do not go to the extreme either, just a few basic. It has always existed since MSN, why not blame them ? As Alberto Aru said, those who do not want it can turn it off !

@augier I dunno, for me, using a backslash to escape characters is a "basic reflex". In fact, when something won't let me escape with a backslash, I get annoyed. What's a better alternative?

@brentbartlett : I think the best idea is to make an option to activated by default.

We must understand that people joining us will in a vast majority come with basic reflexes taken from Facebook, Twitter, MSN like @stefofficiel said. They will try to adopt the same reflexes here. They might not understand that things that don't work on diaspora* are choices, not bugs or lacks of features.

This might look as details, but details are what make people comfortable and cosy. IMHO, it would be sad to see people start trashing diaspora* for little things like that.

It's a matter of choice. the two solutions are good to me. But we have to make a important choice here : do we choose to continue doing our geeky things with geaky features, potentially creating a gap with the less comfortable-with-technology people, or should we try to make it easier for them, potentially crating disturbing features for old users ?

I think that it's a feautre. Nothing more, nothing less. It won't hurt to let it be, as soon as it's possible to deactivate it. The third possibility we have is the github-style : when the person starts to write something that can be a smiley, displaying a list of smileys propostition, without inserting it for him/her ? A bit more complicated to implement, but a good compromise ?

Since I use a computer, since I started using the Internet, I've always seen and used smileys. Of course, do not make smiley base so noobies like Facebook with thumbnails, big smiley, no. But as @augier said he must consider the future users of Diaspora as they are, that is, the average user or users from Facebook. We obviously do not want a Facebook-Like but smileys are a means of expression as well as the text. It's a simple way to tell if you joking or not. And far beyond, the smiley dresses the text is a little emphasis on the web. Formally resign with smileys is like saying it would be better to redo the base diaspora in xHTML, it does not make sense. And of course, I understand people who do not want it, it's called freedom. The easiest way is to make an option to enable or disable smilies.

My three cents:

1. The software should NOT convert my plain characters into smileys (or emoticons, or emoji, or whatever).

2. If other users want to enable an auto-conversion feature for themselves, fine with me.

3. The software SHOULD show me everyone else's smileys (or emoticons, or emoji..) exactly as they intended it. I'm not sure, but it sounds like some people are saying they never even want to see a smiley (for aesthetic purposes?) and so want an option to filter them out while reading other people's posts. That sounds pretty misguided, bordering on censorship. You might as well filter out all swear words, or words that begin with the letter Q, or the names of football teams you don't like...

To summarize: smileys and whatnot are obviously annoying and overused, and ought to be used sparingly, if at all, in the interest of good taste. But we are not the taste police, and they are, in fact, a form of expression, and we're all about freedom of expression, no?

First, I don't think that we should do things just because it's something that Facebook is doing, in an attempt to woo Facebook users to our platform. Diaspora should do what it's users want, not what Facebook's users want.

Second, I agree with @rob12 . The user setting for Emojis/Emoticons should change the way I post, not the way other posts look. So, for instance, if we decide that :) should be substituted with a smiley graphic, then, if I have the Emoji setting on, :) will become a smiley graphic for all users, and if I have it off, it will be :) (colon paren) for all users. This will also help prevent accidental substitutions, such as can happen with strings like TL;DR or blocks of code. If you think that your post will accidentally trigger the emoticons, you can turn it off, post, then turn it back on again, and your post will format as intended.

Put another way, whatever is done with smileys/emoticons/emoji, it should definitely be done upon input, not output.

Diaspora should do what it’s users want, not what Facebook’s users want.

Smileys have always existed ... It is not just Facebook only ...
I have seen it over the output, ie if I do not want a smiley, well I do not mind. If :-) must be transformed into this: ☺ where is the problem?
All over the internet smileys exist, why try at all costs to override the "rule"?

First, I don’t think that we should do things just because it’s something that Facebook is doing, in an attempt to woo Facebook users to our platform. Diaspora should do what it’s users want, not what Facebook’s users want.

Problem is, it's not only Facebook... It's as old as I use Internet (1998) I'm used t use them since I used MSN. For better or worse, they exists and are widely used, not only on Facebook.

I agree we shouldn't bend to whatever Facebook make, but we have a tiny latitude to move. Our decision should not impersonate lack of features.

I agree that smileys could be such a non-essential feature that we can afford to throw them. But I think we have to seriously discuss if his absence can hurt.

Personally, it frustrates me to use Diaspora without smileys, I use Diaspora because I know it's still in dev. But if tomorrow, Diaspora is stable version, and having voluntarily transferred the smiley for outlandish reasons, I think it would be one of the point you have to leave! And by then, social networks, there will surely others ...

Smileys have always existed on the web. And then well the hashtag @ uses for city smileys why someone would suddenly lost their place ? For what it's kikoolol ? And ?

Knowing a <3 currently doing a heart ...

Hi all, A net user since mid 90s. I dunno how people equate smileys with fb/facebook only. I remember being on usenet and IRC in the first few days being on chat and the same was also used, abused, exploited whatever in email and all sort of correspondence since then. Characters like :) :P :( and others do share from where a person is coming from. If a person makes a rude statement about something or somebody when s/he is in a sad state, people would perhaps have a bit more latitude to that person, or otherwise be more rude to that person.

I do understand that it could go to the other extreme as well and have no answer for that. If D* wants to have non-geeky people this would be one of the basic features people would like.

We can have debates about the best way to achieve that but not having it would probably be an dodo like attitude .

My 2 paise.

If D* wants to have non-geeky people

That question that seems to be at the heart of just about every feature discussion here...

That question that seems to be at the heart of just about every feature discussion here…

An that's a bad thing ? In what ?
diaspora* is a social network, naturally attempting to reach each and every person, not only the computer scientists...

We know how to escape characters because we've used it a lot. Not everyone do... This is logic.

@augier It's not a bad thing at all. I completely agree with you! Read my earlier comments, I'm all for smiley's and understand them as essential even though I don't particularly need them myself :)

@rob12 : Okey, I apologize ! :)

@stefofficiel @shirish
Yes, we've always had smilies, but the decision to make them into graphics has been more recent. In fact, we have smilies on Diaspora right now, as :) and =P and >:-( all work. The argument is whether or not to include graphics.

FWIW, I'm not against graphics, although I do think that UTF-8's extended character sets are a more elegant solution. I also quite like emojis, like they have on Ello. The issue I have is with text substitution.

I quite like @Flaburgan's suggestion here:
https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/pull/4860
Add a link to the ASCII table in the publisher. This gives users easy access to smilies as well lots of other special characters. Perhaps it could be a dropdown menu, or something like that?

Which do not help me to decide whether or not to drop the graphics smileys on Jappix ! :)

IMO, it makes more sense to have the extension conform to Diaspora, not change Diaspora to conform to the extension. I'm in favor of dropping them from Jappix.

@rob12

The software SHOULD show me everyone else’s smileys (or emoticons, or emoji..) exactly as they intended it. I’m not sure, but it sounds like some people are saying they never even want to see a smiley (for aesthetic purposes?) and so want an option to filter them out while reading other people’s posts. That sounds pretty misguided, bordering on censorship. You might as well filter out all swear words, or words that begin with the letter Q, or the names of football teams you don’t like…

Oh, not this argument again. How on earth does choosing what I see amount to censorship? You might as well say I'm censoring by choosing not to read every single blog post on the internet. It doesn't stop anyone from publishing what they want (which is what censorship actually means); it just enables me, personally, to choose what I see, personally, with my own eyes. Please don't call this migsuided or try to equate it with censorship.

ps: I'm just about to 'censor' all films currently on release by not going to the cinema tonight.

Another way of saying it: censorship is preventing people from saying what they want to say. Allowing people to choose what they see doesn't prevent anyone from saying what they want to say, so isn't censorship. What you're proposing, on the other hand, means forcing people to see what they don't want to see, which is definitely misguided.

@goob On more pragmatic means : we cannot store unfinished posts and treats how to display them based on wether or not they decided to display smileys in their timeline.

If we decide to implement smileys, it's everything or nothing : the poster deceided to have smileys, everyone sees smileys. The poster decided not to, nobody sees smileys.

IMO, it makes more sense to have the extension conform to Diaspora, not change Diaspora to conform to the extension.

I agree with you, but still, I think ddefinitively dropping graphic smileys is a huge step backward...

You've mentioned me name in your reply but quoted someone else, and appear to be addressing a point not made by me.

@goob Well, I said bordering on censorship. I know it's not the same. I probably shouldn't have used the word at all, sorry. Not sure what else to call it, but I still think it's a really bad idea. Not horribly dangerous and illegal like actual censorship, just bad for communication in general. If I am using a certain platform to communicate with you, then I am trusting the platform to deliver my message accurately to you. Once delivered, you can do whatever you please with it. It's totally your right to install or create a browser extension to block or alter things however you want. I just don't think the platform should be complicit in the mangling of my message. That erodes my trust in the platform.

@goob : I was answering to :

Allowing people to choose what they see doesn’t prevent anyone from saying what they want to say, so isn’t censorship. What you’re proposing, on the other hand, means forcing people to see what they don’t want to see, which is definitely misguided.

And I wanted to mean that we cannot format written messages based on the willing of every one that is going to see them.

To answer both Rob and Augier:

In what way does replacing a yellow cartoon smiley with a text-based emoticon (and potentially vice versa) change the meaning or content of a post? Text-based emoticons and their cartoon equivalents convey (or are intended to convey) the same significance. Really, it's akin to displaying a message in a different typeface. There's no change in meaning. There would potentially be a change in meaning if smileys were completely blocked, which is what Rob proposes above.

I will absolutely block any proposal to introduce support for graphical smileys without also introduce a user option to display their text-based equivalents. That is a terrible idea.

@goob It occurs to me you might be thinking of this as just a display question, but I see it as a content question.

This would be the quick and superficial way to implement:

User A has "convert to smileys" option turned on, types a message with :), sees a graphic smiley, but the message is stored with the original plain :). Then when the message is displayed to User B there is another opportunity to convert it again or not, and so it seems logical that User B should have some say in the matter. I would call this a non-implementation, since User A has no reason to believe his message will be seen as intended, and the smileys basically amount to window dressing for his own amusement.

I think this is the correct implementation:

User A has "convert to smileys" option turned on, types a message with :), and it is actually converted to a graphic smiley. Or maybe they choose from a menu of graphic smileys, or emojis, or god-knows-what other awful dancing sparkly stupid things he wants to include. Either way, the graphic smiley (or at least, some code indicating THAT specific graphic smiley) is embedded with the stored message, and is PART of the message, as if I had embedded my own custom image or anything else.

If I think a winking smiley, a monkey, a birthday cake, and a pair of sunglasses is an essential part of my message, then the platform should respect that and deliver it faithfully. If you think that makes me sound like a dumb teenager then you can block me, but don't ask the platform to change what I said.

In what way does replacing a yellow cartoon smiley with a text-based emoticon (and potentially vice versa) change the meaning or content of a post? Text-based emoticons and their cartoon equivalents convey (or are intended to convey) the same significance. Really, it’s akin to displaying a message in a different typeface. There’s no change in meaning.

I don't think there really is an obvious one-to-one map of text to graphic and back to text when you get into more complicated smileys, and especially with emoji, etc. Yes, for the simple ones like :) and ;) the meaning is pretty clear, but there is WHOLE world of graphic icons out there, with different subtleties and accents. Every smiling face is not the same. That's like if I posted a picture of my dog, and you changed it to a different dog and said "what's the difference? It's still a dog".

There are really two debates getting mixed up here:

1. Should we support smileys or emoji or anything like that at all? This is a valid debate about how essential these things are to communication in general, how much we want to cater to the general public, etc. I would personally be totally fine with none of this stuff on D* whatsoever -- though I also see the point of those who argue for it.

2. IF WE DO decide to support them, how should it be done. This is what I feel strongly about. If we are going to support them, we should support them correctly and properly. Your suggestion is essentially feature sabotage: "Sure, go ahead and implement as long as it doesn't affect me in any way". I don't think that's valid. Either you implement or you don't, but if you do implement you implement correctly.

There would potentially be a change in meaning if smileys were completely blocked, which is what Rob proposes above.

Where did I propose that?

And yes, @goob, if you hate smileys and emoji you definitely should block any attempt to implement support for them. And it should take a whole lot of yes votes to overcome your (or anyone else's) block. Cause it will significantly alter the landscape, no doubt.

The graphics of smilies allows given color.

It's almost as if you were chatting in a chat with someone and you send him a picture (Snapchat, MMS whatever) with a grin! It's more alive than explained that grimace text!

By cons when I speak of emoticons or smileys, I'm referring to the basic ones such as these:

:-) :-D :-P :-( :-/ etc...

To overcome the problems, it is possible to make [;-D] for example !

Personally I'm not a fan of big emoji where there are hundreds!

I saw more than a small batch of smileys like a phpBB forum!

I promise you this: Once you open the pandora's box of graphic smileys there's gonna be no stopping the flood. So either keep that box shut tight, or face it head on, embrace the madness, and do it right.

@goob : I think you are thinking too pragmatic. The problem I see with no smileys is not a semantic one. It is aesthetic one. Smileys are fun, that's all. And what is fun makes d* more attractive, more intuitive.

Now, I understand your position. In a sense, I feel that you fear smileys to turn diaspora* into an empty social network, with no critical sense, like Facebook is, and I can't refrain from agreeing with you... It's difficult...

Smileys are fun, that’s all.

We can also disagree on this point, then.

Well, for a great part of the users, at least think I. Maybe we sould vote ?

I tend to agree with @augier. Smileys are fun. Following as evoked @augier if your concern is that Diaspora become a Facebook uninteresting, do you honestly believe that it will be different without smileys?
I'm sure not. And then it takes for everyone. Let's vote!

Embedding images is not a solution for emoticons and it is ridiculous to offer that as a solution.

I also wouldn't say diaspora has much of a design aesthetic currently. It's mostly a bootstrap-esque design. I do not agree that smiley's would be so detrimental to the design to not make them an option for people who want them. It would be easy to convert an emoji to its textual alternative for the NIMBY's: http://www.emoji-cheat-sheet.com

Note that I'm not so much referring to to the tile as to the description. Also it doesn't give the possibility to express the valid opinion to keep smileys in the chat but not integrate them anywhere else.

I am also concerned that there was already support for smiley's but that support was ripped out with any community discussion
https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/pull/1605

@roy2 there was generally very little community discussion in these days. Also that removed converting things like :-) to Unicode emojis, not graphical smileys

Do not the unicode emojis have graphical representations? http://apps.timwhitlock.info/emoji/tables/unicode

huh?

Also it doesn’t give the possibility to express the valid opinion to keep smileys in the chat but not integrate them anywhere else.

@jonnehass : It can be the subject of another proposition.

To make the proposition clearer :

Currently, the chat front-end converts text-smileys to graphic smileys.

I propose to add a feature to let the user disable this auto-convertion and extend the system to posts and comments.

If you intend multiple proposals then don't mix the topics, make one for whether we want them in the chat and one for whether we want them anywhere else. And as said avoid questions, make a clear statement to a agree or disagree with.

I am also concerned that there was already support for smiley’s but that support was ripped out with any community discussion

That was when community didn't have power to discuss. You might know things have changed ;) (hint: no company behind the project, just a community)

I don't mind smileys as long as it doesn't auto-convert a combination of symbols to a graphic. I want my punctation to remain as I intended, and I also don't want to have images in my text where there should be none.

A separate input method for inserting the unicode emojis (= "text") with a nice icon font that matches our design could do the trick.

@roym Why is that ridiculous?

To expect people to be technical enough to locate an emoji image and also know markdown to embed the emoji as a solution to enabling emoji's on the site is a ridiculous solution. Hope that cleared it up for ya @brentbartlett!

A separate input method for inserting the unicode emojis (= “text”) with a nice icon font that matches our design could better do the trick.

This is what I expected to do at first. Jappix has a text-smileys replacement system hard-coded. I wanted to modify it to let podmins have their own smileys. But I don't want to spend too much time on that question. I didn't expect that topic to be that long and controversial.

@roym Sure, THAT would be ridiculous, but there are probably better ways to do it. For example, you could have a menu which lets you select the emoji and then inserts the Markdown for you.

I notice that several people who have voted 'yes' to this proposal have expressed opinions in their comments which are opposed to this proposal, for example the most recent one, 'Maybe this can be done based on Emojis instead of graphics.

Which just goes to show that this isn't a proper, clear proposal - which is why I haven't voted.

Please vote block. I will too. I wrote the proposition the wrong way. I will open clearer one soon.

@augier, if you don't want this proposal to continue, you can close it now (as you opened it).

@goob : just a matter of procedure. I don't want the proposal to be relevant.