Menuo
Again the issue with written tone, emphasis and emoticons is raised.
Definitely, sign language may have problems with being compatible with the current state of Tatoeba.org but what about smileys, capitalizing words for emphasis, sarcasm, irony etc.?
The thread:
http://tatoeba.org/por/sentences/show/2096210
Which parts of languages are allowed to be added to the database and which are not?
overall I think this topic is kinda meh and hard to decide on, but generally, I would say that emoticons as used in text messages etc. are a part of an established style of writing, so banning them on here would be somewhat discriminating to the people who want to use them.
problem with using things like *this* or -this- for emphasis is that there is no consistent code how to use them, so they might be interpreted differently from what you wanted to express. then again, I think people will have enough empathic intuition to figure it out in the majority of cases.