language is composed of more then words. It is tone of voice, body language and eyes, words say one thing while the rest either back it up or change the meaning. these emoticons are good but, lack. May I suggest an addition of colors. circles that are colored that mean emotion. A happy face lacks suffiecient impact or warning. Sometimes our emotions on a subject can be mixed so being able to mix the colors and amount of circles on a post will give a better clue according to feelings.This might be a useful help in discussions. Colors are used on labels and signs world wide to denote intent.
example:
red circle for upset how many circles of red gives the level of upset/ anger
yellow for worry or concern
blue impatient
green happy
black deadly serious / not budging an inch, you have totally crossed the line.
etc… A goodly variety of emotion or feelings associated with the colors can be added to the emoticons or placed else where on the submission page. Like I said the smiley face is good but it lacks, too many conversations here fly off the handle, If folks were able to see body language, tone of voice or even look into eyes the situation would be handled differently, these colors may be a substitution, I think they would carry impact when used in conjunction with emoticons or alone. Perhaps the area on the right of the submission page can be used it is blank and of good size at least on my screen it is.