[Bill Riel]

In article . com,
says...

The only problem that remains is the mysterious sign at the end of your
message.
Like that :-). I see that it is called a "smiley". Is it meant to
restrict your true meaning to the members of a smiley club? Can anyone
join? Are Andre Jute and Arny Krueger members?

Ludo,

you too can join this illustrious club. Basically they are called
"emoticons" and the intent of their use is to help clarify a posters
meaning (since written language contains none of cues that face to face
communication conveys).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon

Of course, many people use them to "justify" nasty behaviour, but you'll
never see examples of that on RAO ;-)

--
Bill