FirstFreedom
Moderator
1. Make it a forum rule that (or even impose this rule via the software, if possible) that you only post your signature ONCE per thread, at your first reply in the thread, not with every post, or, at the most, once per PAGE on a given thread. I self-impose this rule already. Would this save bandwidth or no? Even if it doesn't, it cleans up the length / flow of the threads considerably, yet still allows folks to express themselves with sig line.
2. ELIMINATE the smiley altogether. Have the software disallow this smiley as a result of typing its shorthand. It seems that no good can come of it, since so many people take it as an affront (probably as they should) because rolleyes implies "you're a fruitcake that doesn't know what he's talking about" - for better or worse, right or wrong, a certain portion of the forum public will ALWAYS interpret that smiley as having that meaning. So it's always going to be ipso facto offensive to some people, which can only lead to *bad things*, discouraging civil, polite discourse. This smiley is antithetical to the forum rule of attack the argument, not the person, it seems to me. It's a copout shorthand way of not expressing a valid, cogent, polite argument, but rather just doing a drive-by personal attack.
OK, there's my .02. YMMV.
2. ELIMINATE the smiley altogether. Have the software disallow this smiley as a result of typing its shorthand. It seems that no good can come of it, since so many people take it as an affront (probably as they should) because rolleyes implies "you're a fruitcake that doesn't know what he's talking about" - for better or worse, right or wrong, a certain portion of the forum public will ALWAYS interpret that smiley as having that meaning. So it's always going to be ipso facto offensive to some people, which can only lead to *bad things*, discouraging civil, polite discourse. This smiley is antithetical to the forum rule of attack the argument, not the person, it seems to me. It's a copout shorthand way of not expressing a valid, cogent, polite argument, but rather just doing a drive-by personal attack.
OK, there's my .02. YMMV.