Smiley

[RichardBrittain]

I had a very specific smiley I was including in a lot of posts. It doesn't work anymore, it looks like this:

 

[Evadman]

link is banned. Host it somewhere else.

 

[RichardBrittain]

DrPizza has explained the situation to me in PM. This thread can be closed.

 

[DrPizza]

Your image link was removed as there was no reason to use a "very specific smiley" that was nearly identical to the simple : ) (without the space between)

Furthermore, in searching for other images/links to the website that hosted that smiley, all I found were different links to the same smiley & another gif images that was simply a character space - no visible component. The vast majority of links in other forums that I found were from just the same 2 or 3 usernames that had posted on a wide variety of forums.

The character space gif was a HUGE red flag for me. And, all of the "smiley face" links were actually a variety of different links that all were redirected to the same smiley face. Couple that with a posting style resembling that of shooting a shotgun - multiple posts spanning multiple sub forums here, often separated by only a minute between posts - very unusual and suspicious activity. I didn't know what the motive was, or if there was a motive, but it was suggested that since those links redirected to a file already, we didn't know what they would redirect to in the future. Regardless, in searching, I saw that your account was banned on at least one other respected website. With that many red flags, the site you linked to was placed on the censor list as a precaution. It was noted that such action shouldn't impact on your ability to post here, nor the content of your posts (use a colon and right parenthesis for a smiley face).

I'm responding to your forum issue question not only to answer your question, (as I had already done so via PM) but to answer the question for others who might wonder why your links were removed.