I'm not saying anyone should stop using them, it's up to them.

Believe me, I'd never get geniunely angry or upset over anything anyone could say here, whatever people who I've never met in person type on a keyboard from hundreds or thousands of miles away doesn't affect me in the slightest. I'm certainly not someone who gets really riled up over things people do on internet sites.

Whenever I talk with my old friends (who I've spent plenty of time with) on message boards we rarely have to use smileys to express ourselves, because we are familiar with each other's personalities and I can imagine what the words would sound like coming out of their mouths. But here it's a little different, we don't actually know each other that well (although some members have met each other).