I didn’t get a Haskell plushy for Christmas either. 
Is this not coming? :< perhaps it is too late to adopt plush toy for such an old language.
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Is this not coming? :< perhaps it is too late to adopt plush toy for such an old language.
It is never too late for plush toys.
I too am in favor of a sloth plush toy 
, and I know an insider on the Haskell Foundation who is willing to help. But before ruffling anyone’s fur — would anyone object to the animal of the sloth taking the first (but perhaps final) turn at bearing the Haskell logo?
@cdsmith The artwork you posted — do we have copyright for that?
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FWIW I love Zurihac 2022 artwork:
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I think we ought to be cautious about how our ironic in-jokes could be interpreted outside the community.
I think the best way forward for this would be to do a simple poll with the options which emerged in this conversation. What do you think?
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I vote for sloth and love the idea of language mascot.
Definitely this one!
The sloth as the Haskell mascot? I’m surprised no-one has suggested “the Haskell snail” - it might be wise to wait until after GHC is multi-threaded by default. Who knows - a “faster” mascot may then be more appropriate…
I’ve commissioned a few Haskell-tan characters.
This one was done for $10, from a kid.
FiveRR has a bunch of artists available, and some of them are good quality. A friend of a friend is also a graduate art school trained artist, but wants a bit of money, in the 200-400 USD range.
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Mascot design, IMO, should be done by corporate types, not primarily to represent Haskell or the community, but to appeal to future Haskellers we want to reach. A sloth or a snail is a nice symbol of laziness, but it’s not strong marketing, which should be the underlying idea of a mascot.
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I think a narwhal will be pretty charming and feel more welcoming to outsiders (compared to a sloth, snail, etc…). Plus it is also pretty unique an animal to remember.
As for a cute/anime character representing Haskell, I think it would not appeal to as much audience alone (but we have Wikipe-tan, so who knows). I think it’ll be nice if an animal mascot and an anime character coexist to represent Haskell.
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Is your argument that an anime girl is a more corporate, stronger marketing mascot than a sloth?
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…or for that matter some other anime character e.g. a droid?
course not, but it should be handled by Haskell Foundation or at least GHC. I’m just expressing my interest in mascots; Lisp, for instance, just has a parentheses monster, Java’s a cup of coffee, etc…
It has to be considered how the symbols work. One of the issues brought up in another thread is that Haskell is not seen as suitable for production so we have a lot of Haskell amateurs who never get to get a Haskell job. A mascot has to be designed to appeal to the bean-counters (and honestly upstanding men and women) who make decisions on whether or not to adopt Haskell, to existing Haskellers as a symbol of identity, as well as to target audiences of future Haskellers.
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In that regard, my efforts to design a Haskell-tan is just a hobbyist effort, but it entertains me. The Haskell sloth people are pushing here should also be seen as a hobbyist effort; i.e, HF and GHC steering committee will have to sign off to it, but a proper Haskell mascot requires marketing strategy and intention.
…where to place the Haskell logo is left as an exercise for the artisans amongst us.
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I love this idea! Is it happening ?
I finally took the time to create a short form to vote the options which emerged in this thread.
Please vote at https://forms.gle/zgsEerrkUR4wS3Ct9
I’d ask also to share it with fellow Haskellers, to get as many votes as possible. If you to retweet, I linked it here https://twitter.com/marcoshuttle/status/1511735812039319553
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This is the result (up to now) of the poll. It looks like a cat would be the preferred option, closely followed by a lamb a a sloth.
I guess the next step could be to try to see if there is actually some entity interested in founding this experiment. @HeinrichApfelmus you mentioned you had a contact in the Haskell Foundation, right?
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Top 3 are too close tho, what about polling again restricted to the 3?
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I think this is a great idea - maybe even a new poll officially backed by the foundation?