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:
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The software should NOT convert my plain characters into smileys (or emoticons, or emoji, or whatever).
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If other users want to enable an auto-conversion feature for themselves, fine with me.
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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 
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
@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?