A manifesto for ⁂ as a symbol for the fediverse
https://symbol.fediverse.info/
@FediverseSymbol Asterism does not exist in a vacuum. It was not added to Unicode for fun so that it's use case could be found later.
Asterisms are still used for purposes such as dinkus. Indeed I regularly use it for that myself.
Attempting to repurpose an already used symbol has strong "move over loser, we are taking this" vibes.
You want something that is part unicode? Fine, do it the hard (but correct) way like everyone else and submit a proposal.
Edited 89d ago
@ruari Hello! It’s definitely not our intention to erase existing uses of ⁂ :) It’s a great dinkus, it’s used in weather forecasting, and apparently can stand for “untitled”. In a way, that’s a sign that it’s been reused for different usages several times already.
@ruari Many symbols have, # are now for hashtags and chat rooms as much as they are for ordinal numbers, and they haven’t been used for weights in a long time. Here we use two @s, one for username (which comes from microblogging), one for belonging to a server (which comes from earlier computing), and we don’t use it for prices anymore. And most smileys re-use symbols :)
Once chanced upon a Freemason's book they use it extensively.
@ruari What I mean is that symbols can be repurposed without loosing the meaning of their previous uses, it’s all a matter of context!
As for proposing to Unicode, it’s not the way to go to propose a new symbol out of the blue. It only accepts symbols that are already widely in use with a clear meaning.
@ruari One good thing about the ⁂ (besides its look and the conceptual meaning we can put behind), is that’s its other uses are relatively nice and not used much in social media contexts. So we believe there is a space for it to be used with a meaning here without conflicting with its others. When I read a book and see a dinkus, I’m not going to thing “fediverse”.
@FediverseSymbol I read the book. Very much enjoyed it! I think it's over a decade old now? A second updated edition would probably be justified!
And I'll find his account ;-)