The Straight Dope Message Board is mostly text–based and doesn’t use a lot of emoticons—many people actually dislike the little fellows. I organized two different elections, each with the stated goal of choosing an additional emoticon to add to the board, based on user submissions. This page, left only for historical interest, shows the results of those two elections.

The page is arranged in reverse chronological order.

SDMB Smiley Election 2: December 2002–January 2003

In this election there were 9 candidates and one round of voting. Unfortunately I didn’t store the number of votes from the election.

Current smilies at the SDMB

Before the second smiley vote, these were the smilies available at the message board (December 2002).

smile :) frown :( redface :o biggrin :D wink ;) tongue :p cool :cool: rolleyes :rolleyes: mad :mad: eek :eek: confused :confused: hapyy jewish person ;j wally :wally smack :smack:

Second Election: Results

Winner

dubious dubious (Vote tally not available)

Candidates in the election:

These candidates represent the smiley submissions between 6 December and 13 December 2002.

ambivalent or ambivalent 2 Z (wry) 1 Cecil Cecil yuk yuk 2 gobsmacked gobsmacked 3 dubious dubious evil evil evil hamster evil hamster 4 pedant pedant / nerd not listening not listening 5

1 From one of the authors: “In the days when the only ‘smilies’ were the ASCII emoticons, we used :Z as a wry face like you see in the sunday comics. I guess it isn’t really ambivalent so much as it is just wry.”

2 From the author: “the most useful, representing THOMAS KINKADE: PAINTER OF LIGHT, as well as the Starland Vocal Band and the Doodletown Pipers.”

3 From the author: “I thought it might be useful in conveying extreme surprise (I’m not entirely sure how international the term ‘gobsmacked’ is, but here in the UK, it means to be totally dumbstruck by surprise.)”

4 From the author: “An evil hamster, used in situations when the hamsters eat one’s posts (note the evil looking red eyes).”

5 From the author: “I think it would be invaluable in those heated Pit threads or simply when someone is acting generally childish.”

SDMB Smiley Election 1: May–June 2002

Beware of geeks bearing .gifs

For the first smiley election, we had many candidates. Due to the limit of the number of entries in a vBulletin poll, the voting was done in two rounds.

Round 1: five different polls with ten candidates each. Of those five polls, the top nine smilies (determined by number of votes) were selected to form a second round of ten choices, nine smilies plus the “no new smilies’ choice.

For each poll, you could vote for more than one candidate (a method sometimes called approval voting). This explains why the number of votes is greater than the number of voters.

Current smilies at the SDMB

Before the second smiley vote, these were the smilies available at the message board (May 2002).

smile :) frown :( redface :o biggrin :D wink ;) tongue :p cool :cool: rolleyes :rolleyes: mad :mad: eek :eek: confused :confused: hapyy jewish person ;j wally :wally

Election Results, Round 2

Winner

smack smack

The winner of the first smiley election, smack was added to the list of available smilies at the SDMB.

Results from Round 2
Candidate Votes %
Voters: 345 801 100
smack smack 178 22.22
hijack hijack 109 13.61
smashie or smash2 smashie 107 13.36
dubious or dubious2 dubious 96 11.99
foil (tinfoil hat) foil (tinfoil hat) 74 9.24
Cecil Cecil 67 8.36
sherlock sherlock 61 7.62
evil or evil2 evil 55 6.87
uhoh1 or uhoh2 or uhoh3 or uhoh4 uhoh (nervous) 37 4.62
No New Smilies! 17 2.12

Candidates, Round 2

Winners

These smilies survived the first round of voting and moved on to round 2.

Cecil Cecil dubious or dubious2 dubious evil or evil evil tinfoil hat foil (tinfoil hat) hijack hijack sherlock sherlock smack smack smashie or smash smashie uhoh or uhoh or uhoh or uhoh uhoh (nervous)

Election Results, Round 1

As mentioned earlier, due to the number of candidates in this smiley election, the voting in round one was split amongst five different polls with ten smilies each, each smiley being assigned at random to a polling group. The top nine candidates (those with the most votes), who moved on to round two, are highlighted in the vote count tables.

Results from Round 1—Poll 1
Candidate Votes %
Voters: 414 805 100
sherlock 164 20.37
evil etc… 147 18.26
yuk1 etc… 131 16.27
worry 86 10.68
ambivalent etc… 75 9.32
miserable 61 7.58
visible pink unicorn 54 6.71
paranoid 36 4.47
ambivalent 29 3.6
martian 22 2.73
Results from Round 1—Poll 2
Candidate Votes %
Voters: 365 740 100
uhoh etc… 125 16.89
barf 110 14.86
nerd etc… 108 14.59
pedant 100 13.51
dunce 97 13.11
ch 68 9.19
nsz 42 5.68
einstein 39 5.27
eyeball 36 4.866
baby 15 2.03
Results from Round 1—Poll 3
Candidate Votes %
Voters: 404 812 100
smashie etc… 214 25.54
whoosh etc… 147 17.54
yikes 87 10.38
lovestruck etc… 85 10.14
crybaby etc… 76 9.07
evil grin 74 8.83
pirate 67 8.00
grumpy 36 4.30
caveman 26 3.10
impaled 26 3.10
Results from Round 1—Poll 4
Candidate Votes %
Voters: 373 777 100
smack 254 32.69
cecil 149 19.18
gobsmack 99 12.74
wow 63 8.11
duh 59 7.59
psycho 47 6.05
crushed 42 5.41
kitty 36 4.63
sour 20 2.57
marlo 8 1.03
Results from Round 1—Poll 5
Candidate Votes %
Voters: 405 893 100
hijack 191 21.39
dubious etc… 178 19.93
tinfoil_hat 172 19.26
tired 73 8.17
laughing 71 7.95
rainbow 66 7.39
bhc 57 6.38
lmao 31 3.47
Gray 30 3.36
Spock 24 2.69

Candidates, Round 1

Here is the full list of candidates, divided into their randomly assigned polling groups for round one.

First Round - Poll 1

martian martian evil or evil2 evil miserable miserable ambivalent or ambivalent2 Z (ambivalent)1 yuk1 or yuk2 yuk2 paranoid noid (paranoid)3 sherlock sherlock VPU vpu (visible pink unicorn) ambivalent3 ambivalent4 worry worry

1 From one of the authors: "In the days when the only ‘smilies’ were the ASCII emoticons, we used :Z as a wry face like you see in the sunday comics. I guess it isn’t really ambivalent so much as it is just wry."

2 From the author: “the most useful, representing THOMAS KINKADE: PAINTER OF LIGHT, as well as the Starland Vocal Band and the Doodletown Pipers.”

3 From the author: “represents a growing sense of alienation in society as well as an almost Kafka-esqe sense of dispair.”

4 From the author: “merging of the psycho (psycho) and big grin (vBulletin) smilies.”

First Round - Poll 2

baby baby eyeball eyeball1 nerd or nerd2 or prophead nerd uhoh1 or uhoh2 or uhoh3 or uhoh4 uhoh (nervous)2 einstein einstein dunce dunce ch ch (swiss/neutral)3 pedant pedant barf barf nsz NSZ (no smiley zone)4

1 From the author: “represents the canonization of existential Anti–Utopianism in the postindustrial bourgeoisie.”

2 From the author: “Examples: An infamous member posts another whopper. :uhoh: Somebody makes a dubious claim. :uhoh: Somebody makes an error in fact or logic. :uhoh:”

3 From the author: “Can also be used to express the ideas ‘I don’t want to get involved in this dispute’ or ‘I am neutral on the subject.’”

4 From the author: “Also known as the ‘chiefscott’ or the ‘ckdex’ - a smiley for those of you that hate the little buggers.”

First Round - Poll 3

caveman caveman impaled impaled pirate pirate grumpy grumpy smashie or smash2 smashie whoosh2 or woosh whoosh crybaby or cry boohoo (cry/crybaby) lovestruck or love2 lovestruck yikes yikes1 evil_grin evil grin

1 From the author: “This is my ‘yikes’ smilie. One would utilize it to express extreme, negative surprise (e.g. ‘I just dropped a cinder block on my toe! :yikes:’)”

First Round - Poll 4

crushed crushed kitty kitty psycho psycho marlo marlo1 duh duh wow wow gobsmack gobsmacked2 smack smack cecil Cecil sour sour

1 From the author: “represents all the unique views that all the females on the web hold and their exciting contributions to the whole web experience.”

2 From the author: “I thought it might be useful in conveying extreme surprise (I’m not entirely sure how international the term ‘gobsmacked’ is, but here in the UK, it means to be totally dumbstruck by surprise.)”

First Round - Poll 5

dubious or dubious2 dubious laughing laughing rainbow rainbow1 tinfoil_hat foil (tinfoil hat) hijack hijack Spock spock Gray alien bhc bhc (bloody homicidal clown) lmao LMAO tired tired

1 From the author: “useful for expressing a lot of different concepts—psychedelia, gay pride, ’60s counterculture, slackerdom, and just plain coolness.”