⁂ is called an asterism. In astronomy, it refers to groups of stars in the sky, akin to constellations. We suggest that it’s a very fitting symbol for the fediverse, a galaxy of interconnected spaces which is decentralised and has an astronomically-themed name. It represents several stars coming together, connecting but each their own, without a centre.

...

@ is the symbol for e-mail. # is the symbol for hashtags. ☮ is the symbol for peace. ♻ is the symbol for recycling. ⁂ can be the symbol for the fediverse. ⁂ is standardised as Unicode U+2042, making it ready to copy and insert anywhere.

Git Repository: fediverse-symbol/fediverse-symbol

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[–] dudenas@lemmy.ml 64 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Isn't there one already widely adopted? The rainbow mesh pentagon? Why rebranding?

[–] kittykittycatboys@lemmy.blahaj.zone 33 points 3 months ago (2 children)

is said in webpage: the pentagram symbol is hard to distinguish at smaller typographicl sizes

[–] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 36 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm reading this thread on mobile, and the fediverse logo next to the community name is much easier to see than the three stars. If I didn't already know what the three stars were from the rest of the post, I wouldn't have a clue what they were supposed to be in the body. They look like a blurry capital A.

Obviously the fediverse logo is bigger there, which helps, but it's not significantly bigger, and would still be clearer at a smaller size

[–] MagicShel@programming.dev 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I recommend the asterism to instead be adopted as the symbol for astigmatism.

[–] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 months ago

I like it! 😁

[–] variants@possumpat.io 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Don't typograh so small

[–] kittykittycatboys@lemmy.blahaj.zone -3 points 3 months ago

1 thats not how typography works

2 im not webpage authour what u wan me to do about it moew?

[–] aasatru@kbin.earth 17 points 3 months ago

So they touch upon it on their site:

The pentagram icon is the original symbol for the fediverse, created back in 2018 by Dr. Quadragon and Eukombos. It’s a great depiction of the decentralised nature of the fediverse, and has been serving the community well. However, its design is a little too complex to be used at small sizes, as you would in text or in a button. It’s also only available in image form, not as a typographical character.

I think they have a valid point. Currently on my website I use a Mastodon logo next to email and git and all that jazz. It's not ideal, as it's not so important that I'm on Mastodon specifically (and I might move to a self-hosted #Seppo instance in the future), but the existing fediverse icon would not work well at that scale.

It's a huge branding effort to make it catch on though. And part of me likes the pentagram better.

[–] arudesalad@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

My guess is because it's unicode. But that doesn't really matter. How often are you going to want to put the icon instead of just typing the fediverse

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

eg as a link where using a word 300 times on the same page would be cumbersome

[–] lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"Fedi"

Already more than 50% shorter.

In comparison, asterism symbol (and any proposal that further extends into Unicode's emoji area) still spends three, maybe four bytes.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 months ago

I... umm... yes, I will grant that in UTF-8 and perhaps UTF-16, it encodes to fewer bytes. But that doesn't have anything to do with my point.

[–] citrusface@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago

my friend, please read the article. it does a great job of explaining the why. it only takes a minute to read.

[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 2 points 3 months ago

Not so widely adopted if most results don't include it.