Emoticon Talent Search

[Phillip Dampier]

Be careful with using images already on tinyurl.  I recall on another forum some little darlings thought it would be cute to upload virus-infected JPEGs and it caused chaos.  Granted this was last year and Microsoft has patched that issue (assuming people keep their systems up to date), but make take some care with those things.  Sometimes you don't know where they've been and having loose emoticons would be bad. 

The other problem with off-site hosted images in sig lines is when the site goes down, temporarily or otherwise, every post you will have on here will have red boxes in it unless/until you change it.  My personal (not administrative/moderator) view about them is that they can quickly get garish in signature lines, especially when the signature line gets bigger than the message itself.  The Cullen people eventually had to make this a rule:

No garish signature blocks: We want the focus on the content. Please keep signature blocks to 10 pt max--which will match the page--and free of large pictures.

I like people having fun so I'm not going to be Mr. Meanie and cut people off, but think people should execise some care with these things. 

However, this whole thing does give me an idea about the story-telling with emoticon issue.  While I can't possibly offer every variation on the editor, if we wanted to have a thread of story telling with these, perhaps I could build a web page with a huge variety of these things that would be hosted here on site, and then in that section, people could insert the URLs for an endless number of these.  Since each file would be pre-checked, no worries about "where has this file been," etc.

[Phillip Dampier]

I think we should drop the regular emotions that we currently have for the cowboy versions that were linked to us... so that way we could have our standard emotions that we could display... but they would be Brokeback style:



These would be seventeen core emoticons... which could allow us to find nine other ones to add to it -- I am personally pushing for the cute sheep ones that people are finding.  Hell, there's a lot of things that we could find.  But the cowboy ones seem like they should be staples... maybe it's just me.  But that's my vote.

But seriously, folks... we need to at least get the one that is titled "huh" ... I kid you not, one of the cowboy emoticons they have is actually:  "huh.gif" !!!!!  You think I'm kidding!?!  I can't make this stuff up!!!

Hmmm... this is a very good idea.  I like the cowboy hat theme for the default core emoticons, and there would be room for some sheep too and a few other things.  Can you check on the copyright status of these?  Often emoticons are just released for public use, but sometimes they are copyrighted and require purchase to use.  There are some emoticon image editors out there too where huh (often expressed as ) could be edited to say "Hunh?" instead.

Let me know what you discover. 

[Meryl]

However, this whole thing does give me an idea about the story-telling with emoticon issue.  While I can't possibly offer every variation on the editor, if we wanted to have a thread of story telling with these, perhaps I could build a web page with a huge variety of these things that would be hosted here on site, and then in that section, people could insert the URLs for an endless number of these.  Since each file would be pre-checked, no worries about "where has this file been," etc.

Wow, Phillip, that sounds like a perfect solution to reviving our beloved Rebus thread.  I'm sure everyone would have a ball with that!  You certainly have my vote to go ahead with it. 

Would we be able to use all those smileys in our regular posts, or just in one area?

I agree with you also about keeping the images in sig lines to a reasonable size.  In this case, bigger is not necessarily better, since they can get distracting when seen in post after post.

The Cowboy emoticons are perfect for our Brokeback site, so I would vote along with David for installing them in place of the ones we have now.  However, if it turns out we can't use the extra smileys you mentioned above in our posts, it might be worth approaching the author of the Cowboy smilies, Andrea Hubacher, with ideas for more of them, like angel, devil, crazy, hearts-for-eyes, smoking, etc.

Here is what it says on Andrea Hubacher's site (the link Celeste posted) regarding copyright:

Please be aware that the smiley sets on this web site are under the copyright protection by the author. You are allowed to use the smiley set as permanent or seasonal standard smiley set in your own YaBB board. You are not allowed to re-distribute or modify the smileys without written permission by the author. Using the smileys obliges you to give credit to the author and provide a back link to the YaBB Board Smiley Sets website (f.e. announcement thread or credits page). Only use on non profit sites is permitted. Furthermore it is not allowed to use these smiley sets on any site containing vulgar, racist, sexistic, obscene or adult material. Do not download or use these smileys if you do not agree to these conditions.

There is no mention on the site of paying to use the smileys, so I think they are free as long as we meet the copyright terms.

[YaadPyar]

YAY Phillip & Meryl - this is so fun!!  I't still a big fan of the below suggestion as well.  I'm unstickying this now as we seem to have a great start here.

 While I can't possibly offer every variation on the editor, if we wanted to have a thread of story telling with these, perhaps I could build a web page with a huge variety of these things that would be hosted here on site, and then in that section, people could insert the URLs for an endless number of these.  Since each file would be pre-checked, no worries about "where has this file been," etc.

[Meryl]

Yay, I'm so glad we have the Cowboy smilies now!    I get a kick out of seeing RouxB's 'fro at the end of the line when I hit "reply".      Maybe Ray could draw a little cowboy hat on her. 

There are plenty of others I'd love to add, some of which are below.  I'd still like sheep, drinking, smoking, devil, angel, sun, moon, hug, crazy, praying, heart, dancing, and Mexican smilies, too.  Ah well, all in good time. 

[j.U.d.E.]

Cool cool cool! I like the cowboy-hat smileys!

Where are the sheep? Are they in that website Celeste posted? I can't find them!

Courtney, where you asking about the sheep in my signature? I did them myself. No virus infection possible there, I guess, Philip. 

~ j U d E

Update: Sheep are gone now! I made a new one...