It's perfectly legit to feel that way, but because I am honestly curious: do you feel like [smiles] would be a more legit tag than [:D]? Because if so I really don't understand where you're coming from.
I can see the difficulty that players from journalrps with other styles might have with the ultra-sparse commentspam used in that particular subculture easily, but I don't get why an emoticon used when the player is feeling casual and maybe a little silly to show a fairly opaque, spare description of the character's expression, body language, or inner mind theater is less informative than text when. . . you'd normally be getting an opaque, spare word or two on the character's expression, body language, or inner mind theater. Emoticons are part of the shorthand we usually use to represent our responses ooc in an absence of body language and vocal cues, so why not character responses in brackets, if you're being informal anyway? They give you information fine when you're talking to someone.
I've considered that the problem might be a mental block, or that people feel disrespected or brushed off by emoticons in tags, which is unfortunate, since I'm pretty sure that's not at all the intent of someone who's trying to be casual with their fun and use the same lexicon they usually utilize when telling a friend about their character's reaction on plurk or wahtever. But that explanation does make sense to me! Whereas I can't get my mind around
[8DDD!!]
being more of a brick wall than
[grins widely, excited!!]
at all. :|a
Again, whatever your reasons are, I'm not trying to police your tag responding mojo over here! Just explaining why it seems so odd to me, and where the people who feel ['-'......] is in fact fine as a tag in a fast-moving thread might be coming from.
Re: AATHER
I can see the difficulty that players from journalrps with other styles might have with the ultra-sparse commentspam used in that particular subculture easily, but I don't get why an emoticon used when the player is feeling casual and maybe a little silly to show a fairly opaque, spare description of the character's expression, body language, or inner mind theater is less informative than text when. . . you'd normally be getting an opaque, spare word or two on the character's expression, body language, or inner mind theater. Emoticons are part of the shorthand we usually use to represent our responses ooc in an absence of body language and vocal cues, so why not character responses in brackets, if you're being informal anyway? They give you information fine when you're talking to someone.
I've considered that the problem might be a mental block, or that people feel disrespected or brushed off by emoticons in tags, which is unfortunate, since I'm pretty sure that's not at all the intent of someone who's trying to be casual with their fun and use the same lexicon they usually utilize when telling a friend about their character's reaction on plurk or wahtever. But that explanation does make sense to me! Whereas I can't get my mind around
being more of a brick wall than
at all. :|a
Again, whatever your reasons are, I'm not trying to police your tag responding mojo over here! Just explaining why it seems so odd to me, and where the people who feel ['-'......] is in fact fine as a tag in a fast-moving thread might be coming from.