The backslash is a very versatile tool. things such as discord and google both use it to cancel out something you may not want, such as the - sign or an a formatting thing. I believe that the potterworld forums should also do this, for convenience. does not hit the same as : ) without the space. I believe that being able to do emoticons without it automatically being converted to an emoji is a good addition to the forums. Right now, it looks like this if you attempt it. \