  Context: Open source software development has become more social and
collaborative, especially with the rise of social coding platforms like GitHub.
Since 2016, GitHub started to support more informal methods such as emoji
reactions, with the goal to reduce commenting noise when reviewing any code
changes to a repository. Interestingly, preliminary results indicate that
emojis do not always reduce commenting noise (i.e., eight out of 20 emoji
reactions), providing evidence that developers use emojis with ulterior
intentions. From a reviewing context, the extent to which emoji reactions
facilitate for a more efficient review process is unknown. Objective: In this
registered report, we introduce the study protocols to investigate ulterior
intentions and usages of emoji reactions, apart from reducing commenting noise
during the discussions in GitHub pull requests (PRs). As part of the report, we
first perform a preliminary analysis to whether emoji reactions can reduce
commenting noise in PRs and then introduce the execution plan for the study.
Method: We will use a mixed-methods approach in this study, i.e., quantitative
and qualitative, with three hypotheses to test.
