A bit off topic, but I'm glade to see a project like this running there own instance of matrix instead of the usual centralized/proprietary/censurable solutions.
On the contrary, I'm sad to see them moving towards "slack clone" solutions rather than sticking with simple chat, a la IRC. I don't think adding stickers and emoticons to a conversation makes it any better.
We didn't do it just for the eye candy, but also for threads, offline messages, and user identification.
I wrote down our reasons for moving from IRC to a self-hosted Mattermost here: https://reactos.org/project-news/new-discussion-platform/
We never broke ties with IRC though. You can still join #reactos or #reactos-dev on Freenode, both are bridged to their corresponding Mattermost channels using Matterbridge.
Our Matrix server was set up right in time for FOSDEM 2021. It will soon be extended to bridge to the IRC and Mattermost worlds, as Matrix integrates even better with Freenode's IRC server than Matterbridge.
As an open-source project, never place your bets on a single third-party platform!
Emoticons absolutely make it better, just by saving chat traffic for simple acknowledgements. Emoticons are also used as a simple way to poll, which is very useful.
But they're annoying to type. I never end up using them because I'd have to go look up the icon for something, then copy and paste. I think phones have keyboard features or something, but I actively avoid typing messages from a phone because it's so slow. This represents another move towards "mobile-first" stuff, which I generally dislike.
You are entitled to your preferences, but let's not dismiss actual practical advantages of emoticon support in Slack-likes compared to IRC. I agree it has costs as well as benefits, but dismissing the real benefit is a bad manner.
In slack, at least, typing a colon begins autocomplete by name, which is mostly how I type them: e.g. `+:+1:‘ to react to the post above me with a thumbs-up.
