# Emoticon to emoji conversion should be a user preference, not site-wide

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/emoticon-to-emoji-conversion-should-be-a-user-preference-not-site-wide/407255
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [10 ביולי,‏ 2026,‏ 11:13am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/emoticon-to-emoji-conversion-should-be-a-user-preference-not-site-wide/407255 "2026-07-10T11:13:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
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### Author: ![0cjs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/0cjs/32/570277_2.png) [@0cjs](https://meta.discourse.org/u/0cjs)
#### Post date: [10 ביולי,‏ 2026,‏ 11:13am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/emoticon-to-emoji-conversion-should-be-a-user-preference-not-site-wide/407255/1 "2026-07-10T11:13:50Z")

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I hear from a little bird that there is a site-wide preference that can be set to force automatic conversion of emoji (e.g., `:-)`) to emoticons (e.g. 🙂 ). This site appears to have that preference off, which is great for me (I don’t want to convert :-/) but presumably just ok for those want forced conversion so that they don’t have to deal with the pop-up menu for conversion.

I think this would be much better as an individual preference. In fact, this was previously discussed in [Emoji user preferences - #5 by sam](https://meta.discourse.org/t/emoji-user-preferences/15763/6) back in 2014, but the subject was closed last year without any apparent resolution.

If the menu isn’t that big a deal for emoticon users, it might even make more sense just to remove the option, so at least administrators can’t frustrate users who don’t want their emoticons force-converted. (I have some evidence that some admins do this unintentionally.) I don’t see any good reason to force conversion on those that don’t want it, though I’m open to arguments that this is a good or important ability to have.

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