pfr: Can you post and see the emoticons on Mr Red's site:
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=161315

If so your emoji-generating extension is the problem. Try another.

Other people are posting emoticons: this one is from my Android virtual keyboard: ??

This site should work with unicode emoticons and symbols. But not all people will see anything you post - they need to have a font that includes it.