diff --git a/README.asciidoc b/README.asciidoc
index 72b427993..86a2d6c9e 100644
--- a/README.asciidoc
+++ b/README.asciidoc
@@ -388,6 +388,28 @@ without needing to install all of kitty.
 This applies to creating packages for kitty for macOS package managers such as
 brew or MacPorts as well.
 
+
+== Frequently Asked Questions
+
+=== Some special symbols are rendered small/truncated in kitty?
+
+The number of cells a unicode character takes up are controlled by the
+`wcwidth()` system function. If wcwidth() returns 2 then kitty will render the
+character in two cells, otherwise it will render it in one cell. Often the
+system `wcwidth()` is old/outdated. You can use the `use_system_width=no`
+setting in your kitty.conf to workaround this. But note that it might cause
+other issues, since now kitty and the programs running inside it may not agree
+on how wide characters should be. When a symbol does not fit, it will either be
+rescaled to be smaller or truncated (depending on how much extra space it
+needs). This is often different from other terminal which just let the
+character overflow into neighboring cells, leading to ugly artifacts.
+
+Additionally, some things like powerline use square icons via private use
+unicode codepoints that are single width. The correct solution for this is to
+use either use different icons that are not square, or to use a font that
+defines ligatures with the space character for these symbols. See #182 for a
+discussion of this approach.
+
 == A tribute
 
 While over the decades I am sure many people have contributed to the
diff --git a/kitty/kitty.conf b/kitty/kitty.conf
index d0fdf7601..84ed58dea 100644
--- a/kitty/kitty.conf
+++ b/kitty/kitty.conf
@@ -155,8 +155,8 @@ open_url_with default
 # problem is that system implementations often are based on outdated unicode
 # standards and get the width of many characters, such as emoji, wrong. So if
 # you are using kitty with programs that have their own up-to-date wcwidth()
-# implementation, set this option to no.
-use_system_wcwidth yes
+# implementation, set this option to no, otherwise set it to yes.
+use_system_wcwidth no
 
 # The value of the TERM environment variable to set
 term xterm-kitty