Neither does this forum, in the message body, as you clearly demonstrated in this very post. For reactions I think it makes sense to have a more limited selection, and platforms that let you react with any emoji you like (e.g. Discord, WhatsApp) often lose something in the process, in my view. The sense of community is lost.
I don’t really know what I want to say, I can’t say I agree or disagree with the majority of your post, but I don’t like how you equate these two very obviously different things - emojis in the body of the message and emojis as reactions.
If this were TV, the popcorn emoji would be right at home. This is a forum that seeks to harbor discussion. Thumb ups and downs may be relief enough without the subtle “Let’s watch the drama unfold” meaning of the popcorn emoji.
When expressing ourselves publicly we can find support, a challenging view, or completely miss the mark in the eyes of other forum users. One must bear that in mind when writing, but also when reading others, replying and reacting.
Personally I support thread_creator’s idea. Let’s not further develop a tangentially useful feature of the medium into a damaging feature. I say this even if the users themselves use it out of their own free will, and removing the feature will not make that desire or proclivity go away. It may reduce dogpiling and pack behaviour, putting a reply chain of popcorn emojis a bit higher in involvement cost, in this way closing-in the gap with the required effort to compose an interesting reply, even if it is a short rebuke.
On a semi-serious note, I’ve personally used the laughing eyes reaction in a dismissive way, so if people want to get rid of potentially bad reactions, that one should go too.
I assume not a lot of people want to write a long earnest post and then receive only in response.
But then of course it’s also used in response to posts that aim to be funny.
So maybe it’s not the emoji but how it’s used? And the discussion should be about how reactions are used and whether there should be some community norms about that, not about a specific emoji?
FWIW if you only interact with the discourse via “mailing list mode” you don’t get any emoji reaction, good, bad, traumatic, or otherwise. Could be a solution if a striped bucket with a salty treat ruffles your feathers.
in response.
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