Windows and other Microsoft products indeed have the most noticeable mascots out there, oficially promoted and created by MS since Windows 7 came alive, just not on the US market 
Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS-tan or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikaru_Aizawa for curiousity. As for Haiku, we don’t really need one, because the look and feel of the whole OS pretty much stands out on its own. I came here because of UI in the first place. One can argue that dwm in Windows or a bunch of major desktop environments for Linux platform are good enough for a normal user, but I would say none of them are close to Haiku’s UI in terms of consistency and pure power. Together with the awesome logo it forms up the overall image of the system. Of course those who want to have a mascot are free to draw and present one here 
It is easy to forget especially when the mascot is not present on the front page of the web site. Maybe Walter should be “re-introduced” to the world?
Walter? What a name!
A Fish called Walter… even more strange!
I have friends called Walter! It is a common german name for guys…
This fish is very far to became a mascot!
This fish is not fresh! It is nothing people like to love and to have in their minds…
A fish will be called Nemo to be loved! The name Nemo gives it a technical and intelligent spirit…
A mascot tries to bring live to a object… like giving a animal a name will make it more human.
Give an animal a name and it will more difficult to eat it then…
I liked the manga style mascot in the old BeOs days… manga is for children and for adults still very popular… at least in some countries… Haiku (the name i mean) is from Japan … I think… so a Japanese mascot will fit. Japanese love computers and robots and there is Godzilla! BeZilla… and much more…
Give Haiku a Japanese mascot is what I would suggest …
Manga style is for children, for teenager and for adults and will connect the traditional way of life with the modern one! For me it makes sense… and is nice and logical to explain to the non Haiku user out there…
You are just joking?! Aren’t you?
A little backstory seems to be required.
During the initial discussions when changing the name of the project from OpenBeOS (for fear of trademarks problems), someone suggested, jokingly, “we could call it Walter?”.
Of course this was never meant to be serious. However, it resulted in the design of Walter the Fish, who later got his own website. For some time there even was a conference called WalterCon , and probably some T-Shirts were printed, too.
It isn’t really the official mascot of Haiku, and this is now a forgotten story of the early days. But it has been sneakingly introduced in many places (some images got a “Waltermark” instead of a watermark, for example, or it can be used as an user name in some of our documentations).
It reminds people of the truth about Haiku: however nice it looks, no one really takes it seriously, it is an interesting technical experiment and adventure, not a production-ready system with a good marketing team behind it. Or at least, let the devs think it is this way, they don’t work well under presure and prefer to do things for their own amusement.
One of my crazy thinkings back in 2011 was to create a character which had some resemblance to Lain, from the “Serial Experiments Lain” anime. The joke is in the ending of each chapter, coinciding of Haiku as the “To Be Continued” of BeOS under the support of a community.
Of course it only happens in my mind. 
But, to get back to the topic, last year contest’s demographics were from 12 to 21 year olds. Using this prompt was intended to revive Haiku’s presence among computer and art enthusiasts.
In any case, I can see the community is satisfied with no mascot.
There was a picture of Walter from the OpenBeOS/Haiku past in a comment by the_webers_inc - on August 1, 2016 in a discussion about what would be a mascot for Haiku:
( HAIKU needs a MASCOT ) .
I thought it preferable to link the discussion it-self to minimize the risk of a repetition of the comments made at that time. Also, I have not mastered how to insert a picture in my own post!
I personally don’t think Haiku is in need of a mascot. I once watched a little kid on Haiku and realized what it needs more of: soul. That’s not to say Haiku doesn’t have heart and is a good system – it has that and is… but Haiku needs to be fun and something unique that people will remember it by other than raw speed, etc.
As for mascots, it would seem nowadays that assistants like Siri are beaming more personality to the users than symbols – and that may just be me. For instance, I don’t care that Darwin’s mascot is Hexley or that Linux’s is Tux, etc. But I may be wrong in that opinion.
I always thought Haiku’s mascot was a leaf – maybe add eyes and call it “Leafy” or the like? I really don’t know… but I believe the focus should be to make Haiku great and something that anyone from a seasoned developer to someone getting started with it can use. That’s what will get people young and old excited about Haiku, maybe even decades from now.
@Stacked_Lambda: I usually use the upload button in the toolbar (disk with an up arrow)… or drop images into the post to insert (when on my Mac).
For me the Haiku mascot is the orange red leaf alone.
Leaf of Momiji or Acer Palmatum.
Another thing is that the name haiku does not sound good in Brazil.
In my opinion Haiku needs better logo, more clear and more defining Haiku OS essence. Let’s learn from the best: MS Windows OS and Mac OS.
I like for Haiku logo “spark, sparkle”, etc:
❈❊:sparkle:✻✷:eight_pointed_black_star:
I think this logo shows more true nature of Haiku OS, than leaf.
But, maybe, changing logo is too late for Haiku?
it is named “haiku” and not “haiku os”
Seems to me we are from different cultures.
I do not see much difference between Haiku and Haiku OS – they mean the same.
How I see, “Haiku” it is symbolic name for this Operating System (before called: OpenBeOS, OBOS), like baptism name for people. And “Haiku OS” is more technical and definite name. Haiku is OS, you can not negate this.
Also we can call thing how we want or how is convenient for as, you can not forbid.
Also you can see at www.haiku-os.org, that “haiku os” is synonym for “haiku” (operating system). Want someone or not, it is a fact.
Well, that gets us to the distinction between a mascot and a logo. I am not entirely sure what that would be, except that “mascot” seems to be more anthropomorphic. If you can dress up as it at Halloween, it must be a mascot!
[quote=“luick, post:17, topic:5538, full:true”]Another thing is that the name haiku does not sound good in Brazil.
[/quote]
OK, can you elaborate? There are so many languages that any word you choose is bound to be something embarassing in at least one language. But Brazillian Poruguese Is one of the bigger, more important ones. Does “haiku” mean something obscene or funny, or is it just an unnatural combination of sounds in your language?
As I thought it to be… it was just a joke!
A joke using Walter the fish as name and/or logo… Very funny! ha ha…
But do you see what this little joke did?
Still a lot people remember this one… It gives a picture to a product! It will be remembered in one its brain!
Creating a mascot or a logo is a science! People will connect the picture with the logo and the logo with the OS and so on…
It is just work for the brains or non brains… my english is not good enough to explain exact what I intend to say…
Conclusion: Use a mascot if you like. But if you are not sure about it make no jokes or fast decisions… let it for a while untouched… and then some mascot will arise of its own… from far far away or just by accident.
Example of a mascot:
http://www.br.de/nachrichten/unterfranken/inhalt/baustellenmaskottchen-schweinfurt-106.html
This mascot degrades the surrounding experts to far more than non-experts! Ah yes thats my personal impression. Maybe you will like it?!
Cultural Moment:
How could I explain?
When someone hurts the finger does in Portuguese from Brazil - ai (interjection) = Ouch!
And Ku = cu = ass
The H at the beginning of words is not pronounced most of the time.
So stay Haiku - Ouch! + Ass
So I plan to create a blog to publicize the Haiku with the Title:
HAIKIDS (in Brazil it sounds like Hi! Kids) ;)))
We do pronounce the “H” so it is not aiku!
and in europe kiu not is not cu!
So no problem! We should spent more time to get people read the dictionaries right then?!
Strange people out there!
Always seeing/hearing something which does not exist:
UFO!
Hmm, yes, I see your problem. But in English, “ass” is in “asset” and “assume” and nobody cares.
In Dutch, “haiku” as it is pronounced in English, sounds like “haai-koe”, or “shark-cow”. Now there’s an idea for a mascot!
You’re right, but it’s Haiku and it’s an OS. I call it myself mostly so, but I’ve also read more often that one should separate this by name.
On the other hand, the truth is an article about haiku about a search engine to find if the OS is not attached, equal to zero.
I also think that haiku does not need a mascot. Which operating system does actually have a real mascot?
Windows = No
Mac = No
Linux = No
Linux Distibution = Yes
Maybe you should leave it up to those who might create a distribution and then distinguish it from the Haiku family?