If someone is misusing them to troll, they can be reported, reviewed by mods and if the case applies, mods can take appropriate actions such as disabling their use of the LOL button.
I genuinely fail to see a legitimate reason to remove them simply because of a couple of trolls. It was an iconic reaction button
Comments
Let's make Liberty and Justice For All a reality.
And then mods would have to determine difficult cases, like:
"LOL"
Is that misuse or not?
And how about:
"LOL"
That LOL would offend the poster (and others) and could stay for hours until a mod removes it, and by then the damage has already been done.
(about the last example)
I really hope that if someone goes to a tragic life event and shares that openly, they won't give people who have the insensitivity (and maybe overall troll mentality) to LOL something like that, the power to make them feel more miserable and sad than they already feel.
Over at the Dutch forum we do have the LOL button (maybe we're better behaved ) and we have the like button but we don't have the insightful and awesome buttons. We (the people who hang out on that forum) don't seem to use the buttons that often. It has been quiet over there, nothing like how it was on the old TS3 forum and nothing like how it is over here.
Well, I have grown a pretty thick skin, but remember that some members are children, bullied, depressed, lonely and vulnerable, and some may post here because they seek comfort from simming friends. We have all kinds of people here. I think the 'Awesome' button is better than a LOL one, and if someone really needs to LOL they can post it in a comment instead of hiding behind an anonymous button click.