You have got to be kidding.
This, honestly proves the point that this forum system could be obsolete, yes it's accessible but this is, as you say very rightly so, 2020.

Um, yeah, sure they do. And  you need to get used to how the world works. Thankfully they are nowadays perfectly accessible on pretty much any platform.

Nerdcasm, have you ever tried pressing windows + period on your keyboard?

Lol, I actually didn't know how to access the keyboard imogies on Windows 10.

Whilst I do agree not having them is a bit of an oversight, at the same time, I can't really say I miss them, or that they'd be top on the list of stuff I'd like to see added to this forum in the future, unless people think the intellectual content of this forum could be improved by lots of smily faces, hearts or grins or the like, particularly because most people here are using screen readers, and to a screen reader just writing "smile" and an  imogee are the same thing.

Actually, my lady often writes "smile" or "wry grin" or the like on various messages for that very reason.

I can't even describe how weird it looks when you write the word smile, big grin, laugh, and so on. If I will write down that I am laughing, I will probably do it in another form, for example I'm laughing at this post, or this really put a smile on my face. Normally, it should not even be something that needs adding to the forum. It's not a feature, it's a flaw of the current system. I can't think of anything right now that doesn't support them. Confirmed the error with this post.

Interesting to see that so many people don't realize this shortcut exists. Probably due to a stupid limitation that it only works on some keyboard layouts and not all, as if those aren't universal signs.

By the same logic expressed in post 13 I cannot be something I'm not.  Being able to write :d or whatever other variation and or almost graphic representation of something that I cannot see has always been one of those things I mostly shye away from publically.  Where I might use them in a private conversation and that mostly with someone I know who is sighted and needs them for their own personal comfort I don't generally feel the need to litter my page, posts or messages with the things.  If my posts do not reflect what I'm trying to post without me adding a hundred winking faces and a tongue that sticks out at an odd angle, then it probably isn't worth reading.  The closest I can get to an analogy is that good burgers and fries don't seriously need Ketchup if they're good; that the Ketchup is there is more of a bonus.

2 things here.
As a Gen Z person, I can say I don't really fancy emojis. I use them, but I don't overuse them. They're good to have, but unacceptable? Nah.
2. This isn't a BBM chat. Its a discussion forum. People get annoyed when you write rofl, or lol, or hahahahahahahah. If we were to use Emojis the way they were intended, people would quickly get annoyed.
And as I'm writing this, a third point came in my head.
3. What's the point of requesting feature requests when you know they won't be added? Come on people. Stop acting so surprised when you find out new feature aren't added to the forum. Its pretty annoying to see people be like, "OOOOOOOOO! I wwant feature z to be added asap! add it now! add it! add it! add it!" When they already know the situation with the admins.

I suspect that adding imogies would be less difficult, since there's probably a fairly basic PunBB upgrade or extension that could be loaded onto the forum.

To be honest though, my personal problem is that so much communication goes down to nothing but! imogies.

it's not a new thing, how often in the early 2000's were there posts, replies or comments that were just "Rofl" or "lol" or a keyboard smily face or wink or the like.

However, the point is this is a discussion! forum, not a chat program or a text messaging ap. A discussion forum implies actual discussion, which means something useful to contribute to the conversation, an opinion, an idea, a long and wordy post like this one .

Would adding Imogies encourage more one imogy posts? or would it be a way for people to give context in their feelings to the words they write.
I honestly don't know.

I'll drop Sander an email with a link to this topic and the opinions expressed and see what he thinks to the matter, since if indeed it is an easy thing to add, we could just try it out and see.

who cares just make them up. winking pooh with swamp shirt on.

The common sentiment here seems to be "hey, we're a blind forum...we don't need emojis," but as @13 and others have pointed out, substituting text equivalents just makes us stand out as "that special forum" (my words in quotes.) Can you imagine what we'd all say if a sighted person came on here and said "I see a lot of blind people dress down...oh yeah, you're blind so you don't really need suits and ties?" I can picture the reactions now. "We can do everything that sighted people can do! Don't count us out just because we're blind! ... etc."

This sounds like a cop-out to me. Because you're blind, you don't need it. Wrong. I use emojis in text and even in Emails nowadays to regularly express emotions that @13 has rightfully mentioned can't really be expressed in other ways:

Calm down man, no one here said "we must add this immediately!" My OP merely pointed out that it's 2020. I even looked through the rest of the post before yours and nope, no one has demanded emoji support. We're only stating the obvious here. I understand the quarantine and things are getting to you, but let's attempt to remain sensible and find healthier outlets for our frustrations.

That's a great question. My answer to this is that it should be up to the users of the forum; not a bunch of us deciding that it's not needed since we're a blindness-related forum.

Also re: discussion forum versus chat program, I see emojis used on forums all the time and even tend to do so myself. They're really useful because of the amount of expression you can convey. I don't distinguish between blind and sighted on this one; even if I'm writing to a blind person, I employ emojis in many ways (and I see my friends doing the same thing--even those that are blind.)

One of my biggest frustrations with RS Games in particular is that you can't send emojis as part of your chat message, and I daresay they probably use the same argument given here: we're a blind gaming platform...we don't need it.

Emojis have either made me laugh or roll my eyes because the tone is much more clear than straight, dry text as @13 has pointed out already.

For example, how many of us use at least three exclamation marks in iOS text messages because the "natural" voices don't read exclamation marks? I'm raising my hand on this one. And why do we do it? Because we're used to synthesizers like Eloquence actually inflecting on exclamation marks, and when the synthesizers forced on us by Apple don't inflect, it takes away totally from the meaning of the message. I prefer reading messages in Braille versus listening to them for this very reason. Sighted people aren't aware that our voice programs don't indicate exclamation marks, and man am I surprised how much of the tone I miss without a display. "hi." is much more different than "Hi!" Unfortunately, natural voices inflect the same way on both versions. This is how I see emojis. Yes, I resisted them at first but have grown to love them over time.

I should just say about RS games, I doubt they have anything against emoji, simply the way their server was designed. They in fact don't support UTF8 at all, so if you are not an English speaker, writing language specific letters won't really work. It will probably for the Ansi encoding such as French accents, but something like Japanese or Russian would most certainly fail. I agree with your post though. Being that it just gives a database error, I would assume this is just a bug somewhere, but I have not tested to see if other Pun BB forums support emoji.