Can we use the actual fediverse symbol instead of that asterism?
issue raised on the wp_activitypub github:
What the title says.
Or just don’t drop symbols inline. That wishy-washy asterism BS is such a pearl clutching gentrification of the witchy, nonconformist roots of the fediverse.
Fuck yeah rainbow pentagrams 🤘
Now, if we could get the Unicode Consortium to add the graphical logo, I’d be sold. But if we must pick an existing character, I for one prefer the outlined star (⚝) much more than either the asterism (⁂) or the pentagram (⛧).
Unlike the pentagram, it aligns a lot better with inline text and looks nice and smooth. It’s also far less commonly used or overloaded with existing readings.
The asterism would be easier to unambiguously read or write by hand though! That’s its one pro.
I love ⚝! Wasn’t aware of its existence. It looks more like the full-scale Fediverse logo than ⛦, and also looks a lot friendlier. Big fan.
A star also makes sense in that one of the functions on a lot of federated platforms is to favourite posts, indicated by ☆. So using a star as a symbol for social media makes some degree of intuitive sense, perhaps. In addition to the similarity to the rainbow pentagram, obviously.
See, there’s a typographic argument I can get behind. Having worked as a magazine layouter and kerning pincher, horizontal alignment is a very valid point.
As for handwriting, that’s barely an issue since we’re talking online text, but let’s go: Is an asterism easier to write by hand? Not really, you have to squeeze in three asterisks in the height of one line. They’ll likely render as blobs. Could you draw a star easier and faster? I think so.
Stars are perhaps even more common in written text for highlights and annotations than typed text, at least around here. I can draw a star much faster than three asterisks. But it wouldn’t be very easily distinguishable as the Fediverse star. And that’s the same between the regular sharp and pointy star and the rounded outline one.