I 
emoji’s
But that wasn’t always the case.
You see at first I was terribly annoyed by them and what I believed they were doing to humxn communication. The last thing we need is to remove even more context from our interactions. I can add context with my emoji use when I want to but that’s not a skillset everyone has. I’ve even seen context get lost with emoji use.
I have a habit of digging relentlessly into my thoughts and emotions as they arise my own behaviors have always fascinated me. Naturally I have assessed my own emoji activations.
What I learned back in 2011 about my distaste was that I only disliked what I personally believed to be an overuse of emojis. My bias was based on a few factors:
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I saw the emergence of emojis as they became a thing of use and judged their use if I believed they were used too much or out of context.
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Out of context: any emoji that appeared in a pile of emojis that had nothing to do with the original post. -
Too much: Excessive use and I don’t feel like I need to elaborate here, we all have a general basis of what this can look like. (No set number in my belief system for too much or too little it’s all based on the context of the use in which they are being applied.)
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Now fast forward to 2021 . . . I love using emojis where I am able to. In the places I deem appropriate based on my own aesthetic preference for use.
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I use
for anything that I deem will impact the overall temperature of the ecosystem, this includes the product and it’s people. -
I like using the
to talk about the features I am building in my projects -
or the
for my credits (my personal props for when I learn something new from somewhere or something) -
I use the
(rescue workers helmet) for community care in the discord channel -
I DO NOT use hand reacts as much as I want to because I do not have the ability to change the skin tone. Other wise I am quite fond of these two:
, 
which I am only able to place in the chat through my telephones keyboard. -
I use
for anything I agree with, but it has to be glued to a pillar within my belief system that value over most things in life. Love, trauma, consent, communication, authentic relating, oppression, self growth, mental health, vulnerability, expressions of gratitude devoid of performance to name a few.
My favorite emojis of all time are the
the
.
My favorite emoji combination is:
to denote Rock-hound!
I landed here in January 21’
I did not use emoji’s right away as I heard on the first community call I attended that they mint cred and I had no idea what that meant yet so I left it alone.
I came to form an opinion around how I would use them (I have been processing some shame because I have since learned how they all really work) it went something like this:
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pretty sure ONLY the #props and #did-a-thing and any task oriented or “work” related channels mint cred
- The sidbar channels must not do that, this would be silly (I was wrong about that but I don’t feel like I abused other channels because I thought that, I’m still a bit of an emoji snob, I just didn’t know)
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I will use
like I said I would at the beginning of this post. -
I will use one additional emoji to express the energy of the contribution - I was following the current cultural use of them as I was seeing it modeled before me (this feels silly to type based on the ideals I now hold about using emojis within discord)
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I wont add emojis if there’s like a bunch already there because as I know it that’s not beneficial to how this algorithm tracks data in regard to importance in correlation to other contributions. If i think something is valuable enough to receive more than what is already there I would emote.
What’s different now from a few months ago? :
I had no idea that the
Feeling compelled to note the importance I’m noticing, some people who have seen the evolution of emoji use may hold biases for how they are currently being used. Throughout history I believe it is the inability to maintain continuity in understanding language and communication between the generations that ends up causing the most damage.
- I think it is important to continue to whittle on our ideals of crediquitte as a community to create a communal sense of cohesion spanning the generations of folx integrating with the sourcecred algorithm.
I actually had no idea that the weight of my emojis is significantly less than that of the core members.
- Shame point: I would use my emoji’s a lot less then I actually have been knowing the exact impact of how mine combined with the weight of how other tier level members apply minting to the algorithm. I feel negligent almost for not knowing better.
- Stating that I would emote less does not equate to me thinking that the individual who made the contribution is somehow less worthy.
Hello Monday
When I return to source cred it is with a new set of personal values around how I use emojis within the server. I plan on using my emoting to denote how much value I see in a singular contribution paired with my observation of how much attention it has received already. While that is what I was doing before it was with less context and there was more emoji use than I would be using now.
This article was helpful in understanding the weight metrics of the emojis as well as where a spike of bias may have occurred in the algorithm:
Are there alternative ways to use emojis?
There are keycap emojis numbered
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I’m curious what the thoughts would be on a numbers system for emoting perhaps something like this:
= minor impact
= median impact
= large impact
I would find the data compelling for collaborators and how they collectively value other branches completion of work. Each number could have a multiplier of one and just be used to track visually by the numbers how teams respond to completed tasks or the face value of the keycap depending on the desires of the community who is using them.
If someone slaps a single emoji on something you cannot track a metric but the number one or whatever the emojis cred mint multiplier is, would that be a safe assumption?
- If there were numbers you would be able to see how much certain branches value the work of other branches on the product.
The main goal I would imagine would be to design possibilities for everyone everywhere to be excited about the thing they are creating. Maybe a rating scale for some emojis could highlight where the interest remains and where the disinterest lies.
Curious how other folx experience emoji use in discord . . .
- This emoji mints 3x Cred a regular emoji does, so I only use this when I feel a contribution had a really powerful impact. I don’t really use that in regular conversation channels, I save it mostly for did/props I feel really strongly about or a meeting in the meeting-notes channel that did a lot for me.
- In my heart, this is the classic community-wellbeing-labor emoji. I put this on any contribution or general message I see in the discord that is support labor. From explicit emotional labor did/props, to when I see an existing member answer a newcomer’s question; basically whenever I see folks supporting each other.
- I use this emoji as like a next-level addition to a