How to get rid of the smiiley column in forumdisplay and newposts?
 

IMO the smiley/ post icon column is pretty much useless. How can I get rid of it?

You should just be able to edit it out of the template, I'd think. If you don't know which one it's in, turn on "Add Template Name in HTML Comments" in your options then view the page source.

(ETA: but now I notice that you've been around for a long time so you probably know that. Maybe I don't understand what you're asking...)

Yes, it should be possible to edit it out of the various templates where its used, in such a way that it doesnt negatively affect my site. The question is where to find this. Who knows in which templates I should remove what?

To find the template to modify, do this - vboptions > General Settings > Add Template Name in HTML Comments > set to Yes . Then go back to your page and view the source code and you will see the name of the template called around your part of the code. (Sometimes the template is the one mentioned at the very top of the page source.)

(I could have sworn there were articles either here or on vb.com that tell how to do this also.)

Seems it can be done by globally disabling post icons:

UPDATE forum SET options=options - 1024 WHERE (options & 1024);

After running the query, you will need to edit a single forum in the forum manager and resave it so the datastore is updated with the correct values.

Thanks to an old post from Wayne on vb.com