WingColors

That is how I feel. My boyfriend thinks they're silly. But I think it adds dimension to a post. Since you can't physically SEE me when I blog, that little colorful smiley of sorts, conveys my emotions where my words may lack on occasion and is my wonky mini-me :)

It depends in what context the emoticons are being used. If I am writing regarding something serious, I never use them.

I sometimes use them when commenting to family members, in their personal blogs. It adds a bit of a personal touch.

I use emoticons all the time, but only if the situation calls for it.. :) <--see.

Peroty: I'm Italian, I gesticulate all the time when talking offline. It's ridiculous how much I do it.

@Josh

I'm... I'm me! Part german part irish with a little dutch for good measure. MY stepdad used to joke if you tied my arms down, I couldn't talk. My mom is the same way. LOL

@LorriM

I meant in the context of IMs, friendly email, and 9Rules Notes. ;-)
Things informal. Obviously I'd never throw them into an essay or the like. Though it coule lighten things up a bit.

Informally I use them all the time. Like you peroty and Josh, I constantly wave my hands for emphasis when I talk. Also, being British means that my humour tends to rely on a long tradition of sarcasm and gentle mockery that's really hard to convey in writing. Smilies and the like just take the sting out the end of the tail.

Plus, I tend to smile all the time anyway, so a :) just conveys that little bit more of my personality. It's all friendly like :D

See? You can't speak without gesticulating. I can't write informally without smilies. It's a sickness :(

I try to avoid using smileys when writing formal articles (blog entries, for example). If I'm happy about something, I should be able to convey it in the text, rather than using two dots and a paranthesis.

In that context I think it's similar to using the word 'fuck': It makes it really easy to convey what you're feeling, but the meaning is shallow and impersonal. Using my own words to make it clear if I'm smiling or frowning adds depth to text.

Imagine if Shakespeare would have put an unhappy-smiley instead of "To be or not to be"

;-)

I use emoticons a lot too, but I wouldn't want them converted into smilies. Because as far as I'm concerned, smilies break your line height. And if you have a border around your images, your smilies will have a border around them too :(

@ hthth: I fully believe that adding that extra "e" to the end of words was an olde englishe codee fore somethinge.

Possibly emoticons before the art was perfected using punctuation. :)

I can't live without emoticons but I hate converted smilies. Brrrr.

They look disastrously ugly when they're converted into images, but as text, I use :D, :(, :), :/, ^_^, @_@, o_o, ._., and :3 very frequently. And sometimes, if I'm feeling especially giddy, they'll end up in my posts :D <-- SEE?!

Wow biscuitrat you have quite a range of emoticons in your arsenal! lol :)

I think they just add range to your words. Same here with non-usage in formal writing.

:)

Emotes! I don't use them if I'm dissecting someone's work (or some other serious post), but they pop up all the time in the comments section of my blog. Not using emotes forces me to express myself better in plain English.

Emotes are shortcuts. I think they're great for forums and comments, but too informal (and lazy) for blog posts (nevermind that it's considered an informal medium). ;P ;D =) O.o >.<" =_=

heh I thought I read a note on the same topic like 2 months ago :P

Not really the same topic - that one was whether emotes were acceptable in blog posts. Here it's more of random thoughts - for instance, I never connected emoticons with hand gestures!

I think it's more of the ability to adapt to the environment one is writing in that having a blanket rule. It greatly depends on what I'm writing, who I am writing to and what I am writing about.

Images are better over text if they;
a) are the same height of the text so they don't distort the text.
b) Not everyone gets Kao-ani.

>__< Then again, is this teh intraweb!