Emoticons should not count toward the post character minimum

[gerhard (Gerhard Schlager)]

I wouldn’t classify this as a bug. Others thinks so too.

Strange behaviour of emoticons in character count

Continuing the discussion from Notifications not clearing properly unless visited from menu: I was replying to a question of @sam’s, which really just required a “yes” or “no” answer, but of course, Discourse has a 20 character minimum requirement. Stuck for inspiration, I threw in a smilie and found that apparently counts for at least six characters, as you can see.

Sometimes an emoji is enough. Why would you want to prohibit posting of one?
If someone misuses it than you should use your moderator powers or flag the post.
Just my 2 cents.