Why has the 'funny' reaction gone???

[MyLimeGuide]

I always react 'funny' to funny comments, as there are a lot of comedians on this site, why has this been removed? Any ideas? Are we happy about this?
Question, should the 'funny' reaction come back? Or AIBU To want light humour?

That’s quite a good idea. Although we can still 🤣🤣😂

They need to be banned.

Ban them rather than remove the emoji.

It's like MNHQ are just putting a very weak sticking plaster over the problem.

But they have left the clapping emoji. Does anyone actually use it? Don't think I ever have.

I think this is quite a nasty thing to say.

A persistent troll put a laughing emoji on all my posts on a thread where I'd said my mother died of cancer.

I reported and MNHQ dealt with them pretty swiftly.

I think dealing with that person was much better than removing the emoji completely.

And I have never misused it myself.

Insulting that you should imply that.

In the absence of a "dislike" button, people use the laugh emoji to register their disapproval of a comment. Some comments on here - even comments that are within the guidelines - are rude, spreading misinformation, or objectionable in some other way. People want to indicate that they object without necessarily making a comment just to say that, without adding anything further to the conversation.

I've often wondered about social media in general if a dislike button would be useful to challenge poor online behaviour or socially unacceptable views (e.g. ableism, misogyny, rudeness etc). It's more neutral than the mocking effect of the laughing emoji.

I think that's a really bad idea. One of the reasons MN works so well is they resisted the toxic social media "innovations" of visible likes and individuallised feeds.

If someone thinks it's important that others also know how they feel about a post, then it's important enough to write a reply explaining what they think and why.

Having visible likes just encourages people to perform for likes. It also discourages people from disageeing to heavily liked points of view.

The way it works now, with people seeing in private that others agree and/or are glad they posted, works well IMO.

The reaction that I think is missing, that would also allow the laughing bullies to express disagreement but would be hard to weaponise, is a sad/tear one. That would be used genuinely to express sympathy where a positive reaction feels wrong. It would undoubtably also get used ungenuinely to say "your post makes me sad because you a bad person" or "your happiness makes me sad" but I think would be hard to use as nastily as a laugh, which can be used very inappropriately on posts where someone is genuinely in pain or distress.

You'll find, I'm sure, that most of these bullies are TRAs or men who think Andrew Tate speaks sense. Not "old bints".

Imagine feeling bullied by a smiley face on an anonymous forum.

Unreal.

No, very real. Unfortunately.

Yeah I use it often. Kind of like "well said!". People often react to my comments with the clapping emoji, which is not some kind of really pathetic brag 😅🤣 but we can't see reactions on other people's posts so I'm just saying, people do use it

Did you read the whole thread?

The whiners got their way in the end though.

Trolls will just use the clapping emoji on upsetting posts instead of the laughing one.

So what have HQ actually achieved? 🤷‍♂️

Much better to make them public I think, or to deal with the posters who misuse them.

I believe it's to avoid 'karma farming' a la reddit and other social media where posters are more worried about how many 'likes' they get than what they are saying.

Thank you. That makes sense. I’ve never used Reddit.

😂

So true.

I'd 100% agree with this but if a person's hell bent on making it their life's ambitions to be as nasty as possible in order to keep their daily dose of dolphamine going you'd have to find a way to stop them from name changing, unless you can ban an IP address, my knowledge of all things computer can be typed out on the back of a postage stamp....But then I dare say they'll find another device.

Or the chronically over-sensitive have ruined it for you?

Both.

In my experience on MN if someone is feral and going out of their way to be nasty the crowd of goodies will conquer!

I disagree.

The laughing emoji is meant to be used to express a laugh, that you find something funny. That is how I, and I imagine most people use it.

People are not being over-sensitive to be upset when it has been used in response to someone talking about bereavement, or illness. To laugh at someone's misfortune, that's bullying isn't it?

If you've been banned from Mumsnet, you've lost your account so you can't name change.

Yes, trolls get around the IP ban but that's a completely separate issue and one that HQ have always had a problem solving.

I'll miss the funny option because I love letting people know when they've made me laugh. I also love making people laugh myself. It can't be replaced by quoting the post and adding the emoji because that would clog up the thread if lots of people did it. I once had 27 funny responses to one of my posts - if they all quoted my post it would have messed the thread up.

I'm all in favour of the OP disabling the funny option on a thread where it isn't welcome / appropriate and also in favour of MN banning trolls who use it to bully people. There should also be an option to block / mute certain posters like they have on Twitter.

That's a disgrace. What about if someone posts something you dont agree with but you still find the wording is funny? I think that's ok?!