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How do you use each of the emoji reactions on dev.to?

The heart emoji clearly says "I like/love this"
The thinking face indicates "this made me think",
I ended up googling for the hands emoji because I was not sure what it meant, but according to emojipedia, it's Two hands raised in the air, celebrating success or another joyous event.
The unicorn seems similar in intent to the heart, in my opinion, saying something like "this is so cool`.

Top comments (17)

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

I tend to think of the heart as "default showing love", hands for extra affection on top, and unicorn as sort of an "throwing some weird love your way"

Thinking face, for me, is "this made me think", but I also think it's allowed for "I don't really agree with this". It's not a "positive" emoji per se, but we didn't include poop because we don't need to be shitting on each other.

We have plans to open up the reactions section so that you can pick from a bigger drop down and the four most used for the post will be displayed. This is inspired by how Slack does it. The list of possible emojis will still be closed, e.g. no poop or middle finger, but it will grow over time and will not be limited to "emojis". We hope to eventually have the party parrot play a bigger role on the site.

By the way, as we grow the platform, these kinds of meta posts are really important because they get to the nuance of the platform, so thanks a lot for making it.

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kmcginn profile image
Kevin McGinn

We hope to eventually have the party parrot play a bigger role on the site.

This is incredibly exciting news.

On a slightly more serious note, I am a fan of how positive everyone is on this site, and I shouldn't be surprised that this is being baked into the platform itself. Keep up the great work Ben, Jess, and the rest of the team!

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nombrekeff profile image
Keff

+1 I also agree!

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elnawe profile image
Nahuel Jesรบs Sacchetti

Like and agree with this comment ^

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jacoby profile image
Dave Jacoby

"(W)e didn't include poop because we don't need to be shitting on each other."

โ™ฅโ™ฅโ™ฅโ™ฅโ™ฅ

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danieljsummers profile image
Daniel J. Summers

I like the "no poop or middle finger" guideline. People need to express themselves, and people need constructive feedback. I tend to think of it as a "don't tell me I suck, tell me how I can [strike]suck less[/strike] improve" thing.

In my queue, I have a post about creating a podcast based on a Jekyll site. When I manage to allocate the time to write it (both on my blog and here), I'll be happy to receive no "poop"s in response to it. :)

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v6 profile image
๐Ÿฆ„N B๐Ÿ›ก

๐Ÿฆ„

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vgrovestine profile image
Vincent Grovestine

I've been going on the following assumption:

  • Heart = general "like"
  • Face = thought-provoking
  • Hands = applause
  • Unicorn = approval of mythical proportions

So, Heart < Hands < Unicorn, and the Face stands alone as distinct.

...Which begs the question: Can one select multiple emojii?

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bernardbaker profile image
Bernard Baker

Yes, I agree.....

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andy profile image
Andy Zhao (he/him)

Yes! You can select ALL the emojis. โค๏ธ ๐Ÿค”๐Ÿ™Œ๐Ÿฆ„

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danieljsummers profile image
Daniel J. Summers

I tend to "heart" posts I like (provided I've logged in - hooray for corporate rules that flush cookies when I exit). I don't think I've clicked any of the others, though I probably should have. Since I've recently added dev.to to my daily list of sites I visit, I'll probably change that soon. In fact, I think I should give you a high-five for bringing it up! :)

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

Interesting on the cookie flushing thing. I hadn't thought of that case. Seems annoying. Do you have any thoughts about how we could possibly accommodate your situation any better?

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danieljsummers profile image
Daniel J. Summers

Not really. They basically have Firefox set to act like it's incognito, even though it's not. I just have to click the icon to log in to GitHub first, and then everything's cool. I appreciate the question, though - and the thought behind it. :)

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v6 profile image
๐Ÿฆ„N B๐Ÿ›ก • Edited

I have thoughts on how we could possibly accommodate that situation.

But I'm trying to avoid Sea Lioning InfoSec stuff on this site until I get a better sense of what's going on.

*Pardon Me* I couldn't help but overhear you talking about security stuff

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damcosset profile image
Damien Cosset

Whenever I read something interesting, I always "heart" it. No matter what. Just as a "thank you for sharing" type of thing.

Never used the thinking face to be honest. "Don't quite agree with that" would be a correct response in my case.

The hands are more of a "PREACH!" statement. Whenever I feel the author made a very important point that really hit home for me. Mostly used on posts about "soft skills", being a good person, things like that.

I think I use the unicorn as a heart + hands + something else on top type of reaction. I don't think I use it very often, but it happens.

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guntbert profile image
Guntbert • Edited

To me the least understood symbol is *hands *

  • On one hand it looks like clapping (=applause)
  • On the other hand it is called "raised hands" - which might not be positive at all

So I really did not dare to choose it.

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kovidr profile image
Kovid Rathee

I came here to understand what the unicorn emoji means after someone reacted to something I wrote with a unicorn. Cool thread!