Techy gurus...what's up with the emoticon algorithm

Oh are you asking why the <span> </span> is showing up?

I see what you mean.  If you type a colon, then choose an an emoticon from the drop down vanilla it is adding in an html span tag around it.  This looks like a vanilla bug to me.   

I suspect they meant to add that to the html view, but it is adding it to the main text input field.  Only workaround I see is to delete it  (<span> and </span>) or don't select from the dropdown just type the word.  For example just type ": hug :" without the spaces for

theyolksonyou said:

  

Must be using internet explorer

That's what you get for using emoticons.