user3650: I remember there was the question called the "SOS! The Great Anime.SE Mascot Idol Search!", but what happened to it?
It seems pretty forgotten to me and doesn't look like it came up with a definite. So are we going to have a mascot or has that idea fallen apart since it was proposed and upvoted by 18 different people?

user24: This is just my viewpoint, but here's why I think we're pretty much doomed to fail with the current approach.
Anime & Manga encompass a lot of different genres. We're trying to be the Q&A site to cover everything. There are going to be people on this site with absolutely no common interests. That's fine, everyone is welcome here. However, when it comes to something like a mascot, we definitely need something that is at least going to not be off-putting to anyone. I spent a lot of time trying to design a mascot myself which everyone would find acceptable, but in the end I'm sure that it wouldn't get anywhere near a consensus, so I didn't bother posting it. In any case, the best we'll be able to come up with is likely something that is inoffensive to everyone. An answer at +2/-0 for something like this is a lot better than one at +10/-5. But that's certainly still far from a consensus.
So what you're seeing over on that other post is simply the fact that this is a very opinion-based matter. There's no mascot proposal that is universally supported. And it's going to be very hard in this format to build a consensus. Meta is still a Q&A site, and we aren't going to be able to get around that.
The other thing is that we were never really sure what the mascot would be for. Is it going to be used in the finalized site design? If so, we definitely don't want anything biased towards one particular group. But also, we're not the ones who design the site. SE's design team does that. So they'd be the ones making the final decisions on a lot of things. If it's not going to be part of the final site design, we have more freedom there, but what are we going to use the mascot for? We could use it to promote the community pages, but if so there's really no need for a broad consensus anyway because those pages are run by individual users. 
So in reality, there doesn't seem to be any real use for a mascot. And to be honest, I'm not sure why we need one anyway. It would be kind of cool I guess. That's why I suggested it (and several other users had the same idea at different times). But it isn't something we really need. Other sites like MAL, ANN, etc. don't have mascots that I'm aware of. If they do, they're pretty much unknown and neglected.
If we are going to get a mascot, it will have to be done organically, e.g. in chat. A request for proposals on meta isn't going to reach a consensus.

3650: <p>I remember there was the question called the "<a href="https://anime.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/848/sos-the-great-anime-se-mascot-idol-search">SOS! The Great Anime.SE Mascot Idol Search!</a>", but what happened to it?</p>

<p>It seems pretty forgotten to me and doesn't look like it came up with a definite. So are we going to have a mascot or has that idea fallen apart since it was proposed and upvoted by 18 different people?</p>
 24: <p>This is just my viewpoint, but here's why I think we're pretty much doomed to fail with the current approach.</p>

<p>Anime &amp; Manga encompass <em>a lot</em> of different genres. We're trying to be the Q&amp;A site to cover everything. There are going to be people on this site with absolutely no common interests. That's fine, everyone is welcome here. However, when it comes to something like a mascot, we definitely need something that is at least going to not be off-putting to anyone. I spent a lot of time trying to design a mascot myself which everyone would find acceptable, but in the end I'm sure that it wouldn't get anywhere near a consensus, so I didn't bother posting it. In any case, the best we'll be able to come up with is likely something that is inoffensive to everyone. An answer at +2/-0 for something like this is a lot better than one at +10/-5. But that's certainly still far from a consensus.</p>

<p>So what you're seeing over on that other post is simply the fact that this is a very opinion-based matter. There's no mascot proposal that is universally supported. And it's going to be very hard in this format to build a consensus. Meta is still a Q&amp;A site, and we aren't going to be able to get around that.</p>

<p>The other thing is that we were never really sure what the mascot would be for. Is it going to be used in the finalized site design? If so, we definitely don't want anything biased towards one particular group. But also, we're not the ones who design the site. SE's design team does that. So they'd be the ones making the final decisions on a lot of things. If it's not going to be part of the final site design, we have more freedom there, but what are we going to use the mascot for? We could use it to promote the community pages, but if so there's really no need for a broad consensus anyway because those pages are run by individual users. </p>

<p>So in reality, there doesn't seem to be any real use for a mascot. And to be honest, I'm not sure why we need one anyway. It would be kind of cool I guess. That's why I suggested it (and several other users had the same idea at different times). But it isn't something we really need. Other sites like MAL, ANN, etc. don't have mascots that I'm aware of. If they do, they're pretty much unknown and neglected.</p>

<p>If we are going to get a mascot, it will have to be done organically, e.g. in chat. A request for proposals on meta isn't going to reach a consensus.</p>
