Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-3157150-20150721104846/@comment-3157150-20150727091230

123777tw wrote: The Pathogen wrote: I highly doubt that in the case of the first two. The third one is also rarely used in its text form, especially on its own. Maybe U R right, but it might be better if the symbols can be replaced automaticly instead of being caused by the template which is added deliberately. I'm just saying it. ╮(╯▽╰)╭ The reason that is not the case is because of both MediaWiki coding, and because the chat is where those emoticons were originally meant to be used. By increasing the amount of effort needed to use those emotes on the wiki's talk spaces, I intend to lower the abuse that can be caused by them, while still allowing a usable, shorthand form.

tl;dr: We won't be allowing automatic replacement of the emoticon code, the way things are is an extension of usual usage to begin with.