Should Insulting Emojis be Discouraged in Communication Guidelines?

[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.

 

[symbolipoint]

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

No, I just say it's debatable. I see the generality and not specific examples.

 

[Jarvis323]

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

To me this seems like a better argument for having them than against having them.

 

[Frabjous]

To me this seems like a better argument for having them than against having them.

Formulate a draft policy for PF then. I think you will find that drafting a speech policy that does not also inhibit speech that you would like to encourage is harder than it sounds. The policy needs to be easy to understand, simple to enforce and preserve/refute the advantages I raised in points 7 and 8 in post 56.

 

[Jarvis323]

Formulate a draft policy for PF then. I think you will find that drafting a speech policy that does not also inhibit speech that you would like to encourage is harder than it sounds. The policy needs to be easy to understand, simple to enforce and address my points 7 and 8 in post 56.

I don't agree with your opinion in (8). First, not using emojis to hurl thinly veiled insults doesn't mean you have to do it with words instead. You can just try to be nice to people and constructive instead. And personally I think thinly veiled insults are not better than direct ones. And because using emojis for food fights and thinly veiled insults isn't discouraged, I think it actually might more often lead threads down a negative spiral as people get frustrated, angry, resentful, and less communicative.

 

[Bystander]

Formulate a draft policy for PF then

"Do NOT feed the trolls...EVER!"

 

[Frabjous]

I don't agree with your opinion in (8). First, not using emojis to hurl thinly veiled insults doesn't mean you have to do it with words instead. You can just try to be nice to people and constructive instead. And personally I think thinly veiled insults are not better than direct ones. And because using emojis for food fights and thinly veiled insults isn't discouraged, I think it actually might more often lead threads down a negative spiral as people get frustrated, angry, resentful, and less communicative.

Let’s try this another way. There are a lot of negative emoji’s in this thread. Do you find any of them insulting?

 

[Frabjous]

I don't agree with your opinion in (8). First, not using emojis to hurl thinly veiled insults doesn't mean you have to do it with words instead. You can just try to be nice to people and constructive instead. And personally I think thinly veiled insults are not better than direct ones. And because using emojis for food fights and thinly veiled insults isn't discouraged, I think it actually might more often lead threads down a negative spiral as people get frustrated, angry, resentful, and less communicative.

In order to move forward, I will temporarily grant that you have refuted 8. Please proceed with your plan.

 

[russ_watters]

I think this issue has been beaten to death. Thanks for the feedback everyone.