Should Insulting Emojis be Discouraged in Communication Guidelines?

[Rive]

Get rid of all emojies is my suggestion - then people won't get offended by them.

One question I guess is whether it would be fine to just say that.

Well, some cases I'm glad there is an ambiguous, short way to express an opinion - lest I would be tempted to explain it myself, with all the nasty parts detailed.

I don't think this phenomenon requires this much thought and especially does not requires rules.
The really offensive emojies are already got rid of: the ambiguity of the rest is just life.

 

[Jarvis323]

Well, some cases I'm glad there is an ambiguous, short way to express an opinion - lest I would be tempted to explain it myself, with all the nasty parts detailed.

I don't think this phenomenon requires this much thought and especially does not requires rules.
The really offensive emojies are already got rid of: the ambiguity of the rest is just life.

I disagree, as I do think it should be discouraged to intentionally insult someone (even if you are doing it in a somewhat cryptic way), if not having a rule against it, because I think it would help promote civil discourse and a healthy and welcoming environment.

But I see where you are coming from and appreciate that you responded to my question.

 

[pinball1970]

I received a couple sad faces to my OP about increased maternal mortality during the pandemic, which is totally appropriate. It made me sad as well. Most of the skeptical emojis I get to my Mentor-type posts are because the poster has been called out for some rules violation, and either they or some sympathetic other poster/member don't like that. It's all good.

Yes I post “sad” or “wow” all the time, usually to Covid and a lot in the Ukraine thread.
“Sad” for ‘that is terrible’ or “wow” for ‘that is awful.’
I received a skeptical recently, I was not impressed.

 

[Rive]

... healthy ... environment.

Part of a healthy environment is about experiencing all common emotions, responses and interactions of life.
You can tune it down to keep things in check, but if you overdo it then the result is anything but healthy.

Physics Forum is already so tuned down that it's almost flirting with self-mutilation.
It's still OK, considering that PF also works as a kind of refuge for many, but still, further down on that way: just when should people start considering the psychological harm done by telling the next random crackpot that he's a crackpot?

 

[Algr]

“wow” for ‘that is awful.’

Wow is a bad thing? There is a second emoji I have misunderstood. Can someone explain human emotions to me?

Get rid of all emojies is my suggestion - then people won't get offended by them.

I'm offended by the letter P.

 

[pinball1970]

Wow is a bad thing? There is a second emoji I have misunderstood. Can someone explain human emotions to me?I'm offended by the letter P.

No it's not bad. It is a reaction on a sad or shocking story.

 

[Mondayman]

I think the laughter emoji would come across as more insulting than the skeptical or sad one.

People also use emojis differently. Me and most friends greet each other by flipping each other the bird, and use that emoji often in text.

 

[BillTre]

flipping each other the bird

I guess that's a happy bird, not an angry bird.

 

[malawi_glenn]

Can someone explain human emotions to me?

Don't basically all persons involved in physics and math some kind of ADD? Hence bad at understanding and interpret social codes? I for sure do, I ask a question in one thread about a persons credentials and I was told it was totally inapproriate... The world was easier before internet...

 

[Vanadium 50]

Al;l I can say is

 

[russ_watters]

Don't basically all persons involved in physics and math some kind of ADD? Hence bad at understanding and interpret social codes?

1. No.
2. That's not what ADD is.

I for sure do, I ask a question in one thread about a persons credentials and I was told it was totally inapproriate... The world was easier before internet...

That has nothing to do with emotion/social cues, it's an issue of misunderstanding the forum mission. We don't want credentials to be required or be highly visible because we want the forum to be open to all comers, without such an apparent barrier to entry/participation.

 

[malawi_glenn]

That's not what ADD is.

Sorry, I meant Aspergers (ASD)

 

[russ_watters]

Sorry, I meant Aspergers (ASD)

Still no.

 

[Algr]

The first mission of any forum needs to be creating a place where people with different ideas and views can share them respectfully, and learn from one another. If you don’t have that, no other mission will succeed, other then groupthink.

Those with badges and special positions on the forum must set the tone of civility in their own words and actions before criticizing others.

 

[Hornbein]

Wow is a bad thing? There is a second emoji I have misunderstood. Can someone explain human emotions to me?I'm offended by the letter P.

When I was teaching a statistics class the students would snicker when I mentioned p. It was a prestigious university but I had a discipline problem. Eventually in a calm manner I politely told them they were disrupting my class and to cram it. They did.

 

[symbolipoint]

When I was teaching a statistics class the students would snicker when I mentioned p. It was a prestigious university but I had a discipline problem. Eventually in a calm manner I politely told them they were disrupting my class and to cram it. They did.

My reaction emoji chosen was "Wow", because, one does not expect to find the immaturity you describe happening in a university Mathematics course. Such substandard classroom behavior from students might be more to occur in some high school classes - and not even in community colleges.

 

[pinball1970]

My reaction emoji chosen was "Wow", because, one does not expect to find the immaturity you describe happening in a university Mathematics course. Such substandard classroom behavior from students might be more to occur in some high school classes - and not even in community colleges.

Yes. The ethos after leaving school for college (16 years old in the UK) was that we wanted to be there so shut up and listen.
I cannot remember many discipline issues after 16.
I do remember an Ecology lecturer losing it at a couple of students then going completely ape sh*t at the class.
All they were doing was discussing a point, I could hear them but they were obviously talking quietly and respectfully so as not to disturb anything.
He shouted at them then us and asked if we wanted to be there, he also asked if we thought the class / him were a waste of time.
We all kind of talked him down collectively and apologized whilst trying to work out whether he was either drunk, or something else.
Trouble at work or at home possibly looking back to snap like that.

 

[Melbourne Guy]

Personally, I struggle though with emojis and systems of social credit, because it messes with my mind as its use or lack of use sends all kinds of ambiguous signals. If I like one person's posts but not another's, do they think I don't like them? Should I like most everything? Should I like nothing? And then I feel I notice effects and patterns emerge based on how one uses the system. So you might feel then you should be strategic about how you use the emojis to be socially successful. And I feel a little overwhelmed by it all. So I've personally disabled notifications for reactions to my posts, and make it a sort of policy to minimally use emojis, even when I like something.

You may be more empathetic than others, @Jarvis323, leading to more deliberation on social cues than might be typical. I've recently come across this dimension within my team, and me being more bull in a china shop, I have had to stop and think my words - and emjois on Teams - through for the unintended impact they can convey.

@russ_watters, could an option for PF users to globally disable emojis on their posts be a consideration?

 

[pinball1970]

You may be more empathetic than others, @Jarvis323, leading to more deliberation on social cues than might be typical. I've recently come across this dimension within my team, and me being more bull in a china shop, I have had to stop and think my words - and emjois on Teams - through for the unintended impact they can convey.

@russ_watters, could an option for PF users to globally disable emojis on their posts be a consideration?

Most of the responses are positive and there are reaction points awarded too.
If I am reading a QM thread and Vanhees, Demystifier Peter et al up votes or puts skeptical against a particular post then I try and work out what is going on. You can get pointers and recognize a previous argument.

If you get a skeptical, then you get an indication that there could be a difficulty in your reasoning. Read back see where the problem is.
Or disagree and argue the point.

 

[Jarvis323]

You may be more empathetic than others, @Jarvis323, leading to more deliberation on social cues than might be typical. I've recently come across this dimension within my team, and me being more bull in a china shop, I have had to stop and think my words - and emjois on Teams - through for the unintended impact they can convey.

@russ_watters, could an option for PF users to globally disable emojis on their posts be a consideration?

I don't mind the emojis. When pushed to give my opinion, I will just point out that I personally don't like to pay much attention to them. It can be distracting getting notifications whenever someone reacted to something you wrote. It changes the way you engage.

As an intellectual perspective, I do think they lend to group think to some extent, and on rare occasions create a level of silliness that can detract from a physics discussion.

But in this thread I just wanted to bring to light the practice of using emojis deliberately as a means of insulting a person. I wasn't talking about using a skeptical face, or an emoji meant to show disagreement, or a wow face. I think now that people probably do use the skeptical emoji in place of a written insult, and that must be why so many people shifted the discussion to the skeptical face. I hadn't actually even thought of that. Again, I am talking about sad facing something you think is dumb, and that type of thing.

I didn't bring this up because of its affect on me. I brought it up because I thought now is a good time to give some honest feedback that could potentially make PF a better place.

 

[symbolipoint]

I didn't bring this up because of its affect on me. I brought it up because I thought now is a good time to give some honest feedback that could potentially make PF a better place.

If God had wanted humans to insult other humans using emojis, then.........?

 

[hutchphd]

We would all have round yellow heads and white teeth?

I am intersted in any situations where the emojis are really the problem. It seems to me that being skeptical is perfectly fine. Being sad is occasionally the appropriate emotion when someone refuses to try to hear you. I think this is a solution looking fo a problem but I don't really use emojis unless I say something preposterous.

 

[Tom.G]

Get rid of all emojies is my suggestion - then people won't get offended by them.

That sounds an awful lot like national politics... rule by the few that make the loudest noise.

 

[pinball1970]

I don't use emojis is

That sounds an awful lot like national politics... rule by the few that make the loudest noise.

I don't like emojis, pf has reactions so I never regarded them in the same way.
When a colleague first used them on a wassap I requested they not do that. The English language has enough words and complexity to convey a thought. No pictures needed.

Reactions are different, they give feedback.

 

[Jarvis323]

One question I guess is whether it would be fine to just say that. Say someone asked a "stupid question". Would it be appropriate to respond with, "It's sad that you are asking this.", or "What a pathetic question."? Or something of that nature? In the case of the emoji it is unclear what the intended message was, but those are the kinds of interpretations one might get if they ask an honest question about physics and get nothing but a sad face emoji in response.

I think it is a gray area currently and it doesn't seem to be explicitly discouraged to use the emoji in this fashion, but the more or less equivalent message written in text could potentially get a person banned. Anyways, I just thought there is some food for thought on this issue.

There has been a large and apparently unanimous response, ironically almost exclusively expressed through emojis, of dissagreement. But still only one person (Rive), other than me, seems to have given a direct opinion on the topic.

 

[Frabjous]

Since you think I dodged your question
1) I assume that you are talking about the seven response emojis (like, informative, love, laugh, surprise, sad, skeptical)
2) I have found the the first four to be positive
3) I have found the next two to be positive or negative depending on the context. I sometimes do not know what surprise means.
4) Skeptical is negative.
5) Any negative comment can be interpreted or intended as an insult
6) Many times I find positive emojis for people who are disagreeing with me insulting.
7) One purpose of the reponse emojis is that they provide a shorthand response to a post in liue of clogging a thread with a bunch of “i agree”‘s or “i disagree”’s. I think this is a very important function.
8) I think the ambiguousness of emojis actually lower the number of unintended direct confrontations which frequently lead to thread closure.
9) I do not think that there is a negative emoji that cannot be misinterpreted as an insult.
10) I agree that there can be emoji “pile on”/ “group think”.
11) I think emoji’s are a net positive.

 

[Jarvis323]

Since you think I dodged your question
1) I assume that you are talking about the seven response emojis (like, informative, love, laugh, surprise, sad, skeptical)
2) I have found the the first four to be positive
3) I have found the next two to be positive or negative depending on the context. I sometimes do not know what surprise means.
4) Skeptical is negative.
5) Any negative comment can be interpreted or intended as an insult
6) Many times I find positive comments for people who are disagreeing with me insulting.
7) One purpose of the reponse emojis is that they provide a shorthand response to a post in liue of clogging a thread with a bunch of “i agree”‘s or “i disagree”’s. I think this is a very important function.
8) I think the ambiguousness of emojis actually lower the number of unintended direct confrontations which frequently lead to thread closure.
9) I do not think that there is a negative emoji that cannot be misinterpreted as an insult.
10) I agree that there can be emoji “pile on”/ “group think”.
11) I think emoji’s are a net positive.

I guess some of these opinions are relevant. Lots of people have given tangentially relevant opinions.

I'm left still to just guess that the vast majority think encouraging civil use of emojis is not needed. And I'm not sure about the issue of telling someone their post is sad when thinking it is wrong or dumb, and whether that should be discouraged or if it matters if it is expressed with an emoji or with text.

 

[Frabjous]

I guess some of these opinions are relevant. I'm left still to just guess that you think encouraging civil use of emojis is not needed. And I'm not sure about the issue of telling someone their post is sad when yiu think they're weong or dumb.

I think their very ambiguity helps preserve the peace. If someone directly calls me dumb, I have to respond strongly.

I have found that people generally find directness more uncivil than ambiguity.

I cannot imagine what an effective set of emoji civility guidelines would look like.

 

[symbolipoint]

9) I do not think that there is a negative emoji that cannot be misinterpreted as an insult.

Debatable!

 

[Frabjous]

Debatable!

I‘m game. Name one and I’ll find the insulting interpretation.