Keep Emoticons as Text

This plugin was created because with the release of 4.3, WordPress removed the "Formatting" section from the Writing settings. Included in there was the option to turn off WordPress's default action to convert text emoticons to image smilies. This plugin does the same thing as unchecking the "convert to smilies" box that used to be available via the settings when that update happened.

Now that setting has returned to the Writing Settings, so you can simply uncheck the box again there, but in case WordPress removes the setting again, this plugin will remain available.