A Universal Symbol for Asperger's

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But can we actually start using it? G-d forbid it would be copyrighted or something...

It's not.

Yes, good point. In some fonts I actually like 273D (the "Heavy Teardrop-spoked Asterisk") better. In MS Word it looks closer to JRR's original image, but not on WP.

Heavy Teardrop-spoked Asterisk: ✽
Teardrop-spoked Asterisk again: ✻

Here's the whole chart of them: http://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2700.pdf

EstherJ, yes, I'm pretty sure we can start using it without any legal issues. While a particular Unicode characters in a particular font may be copyrighted it shouldn't be an issue for non-commercial use. The font used in the chart above allows that, for example. Even for "commercial" use, like printing a T-shirt, you can just draw your own teardrop-spoked asterisk. As long as you didn't copy it from an existing copyrighted one it's not copyright infringement.



Agreed. Those who like it and want it to catch on will have to be proactive in using it. I did want to put it into my signature, but that doesn't seem to work due to a bug/technical limitation of WP. Adding it manually is possible, but a bit of a hassle. Eg.

✻

In the UK, Aspire is the name of a spinal cord injury charity http://www.aspire.org.uk/, and also an Asperger's charity http://www.bh-impetus.org/aspire/index.php so maybe there is some copyright issue here.

Fnord wrote:
We are not the Illuminati ... we don't need any symbols.


i agree..

No. I think I've mentioned that we already have a few official symbols already.

I'm not really sure what it means for an aspie symbol to be "official". Who grants it official status and what benefits does that have? It seems to me that as long as a symbol is sufficiently well-known it achieves its purpose.

No idea what gives it "official" status, but I've mentioned both the puzzle piece and the infinity symbol with the color spectrum inside it. Both of these have already achieved "sufficiently well-known" status already.

I don't know about the asterisk, but I definitely hate the puzzle pieces.

The asterisk looks similar to the "wheel of dharma" that is the universal symbol for Buddhism. Doesn't bother me as I am a Buddhist, but might not please some people for that reason.

I don't know how to make this system display it, but the Buddhist wheel is

Unicode = U+F05D UTF-8 = EF 81 9D

I agree too.

It would be "& #61533;" (without the space), but I think that's not a standard Unicode character and that's why it doesn't work here. It's only the wheel in Wingings: The asterisk is standard, so "& #10043;" (again without space) will display it. I don't think the two are similar enough to cause any confusion.

To those who say we don't need any symbols: do you just mean that you see no reason to use it yourself or that its use by others would be counter-productive in some way?

I think the Teardrop-Spoked Asterisk is a better symbol, because it is a good symbol for that what we have all in common. Worries and a bit sadness sometimes
It shouldnt be any religious symbol


✻

Agreed on both!

BTW, if there are any admins around, can you make this a sticky for the "General Autism Discussion" board? This is catching traction, and the vast majority of people do like it, so it could be a good thing. They won't see it if it vanishes 10 pages down over time.

I'm sorry, it won't be possible to make this topic a sticky because Alex has said that these are to be used very sparingly - and especially so in the General Autism Discussion forum.
Also, I think this would be the third time this topic has appeared and previously, discussion just fades away with no decision being made so despite the current interest, it hasn't been sustained sufficiently to warrant making a sticky. This fading interest is also the reason why the topic eventually slips off the front page.

But, then it comes back, just as you've said (and seen).

Ok, so by not having it there to keep things sparing, you'd rather there be no universal symbol? (it doesn't matter whether it is this one or another)

That is, what you're saying, no?

The whole thing just bothers me, since I'd like to have some sort of Asperger's pride symbol that I can run with, and I'm not going to go with anything that's not broadly agreed upon, leaving me (and many others) right where we were before, with nothing.

Therefore, by having it sink (and then resurface, over and over again), you are saying that you don't want one.

I think I'm just going to contact him directly on the concept on a symbol, since if we're going to ever have one, we need to have leaders or figureheads run with it, anyway. Again, it's not about having mine, but having *a* symbol to work with. We're basically the only community on the planet without one.