I posted this in the FFA and wanted to share here to keep people in the loop.
Hi Folks,
Apologies for being late in replying on this.
We changed the available one click reaction emojis. We had the laughing and the smile and they're no longer an option.
We did that because people repeatedly would use them to mock and laugh at other posters. We asked over and over for people to stop and people refused.
Finally, we just got tired of asking.
I've no doubt the forum would be better if I had more patience. I just ran out of patience there. I'm sorry.
Posters would repeatedly use them to laugh AT another poster. And that's opposed to everything we've always tried to make the community about.
So while I'm sure this won't be popular. We're doing to try and make the community a place that's inclusive and where people are less likely to be mocked.
The emojis in the comments are still available. If you want to laugh with someone with that's great. But please don't use that to laugh at or mock someone or to passive aggressively signal that's what they're saying is laughable.
For instant reactions emojis, we have
That will hopefully cover the instant reactions. And I'm sure this post will get some of those.
- Thank You
- Love
- Thinking
- Sad
- Like
Bottom line, we did this because I've seen up close how a community can suffer when people are mocked or laughed at.
I could absolutley be totally wrong on this, but I think removing the instant reactions like we did helps a little bit with the mocking or excluding others.
I'm certain folks will disagree and you could well be right.
Like we've done for 25 years here, I don't know if what I'm doing is the right thing. But it's the thing I've tried to be thoughtful in considering and it's the thing I think is the right thing.
Thanks.