1 min read26th Aug 201141 comments

14

LW appears to have acquired a new favicon, "<X" in place of the prior "Lw".  This change wasn't announced and I don't know what the new icon means.  Can someone explain it to me?

New Comment
41 comments, sorted by Click to highlight new comments since: Today at 11:56 PM

I don't know, but I strongly prefer the old one. :(

Me too.

If I want to find a tab, a color and shape is easier. The red 'x' isn't enough color to help.

The effect is of some sort of random computer message rather than a handy icon.

Same here. Oddly, the wiki's icon seems unchanged.

The problem I feel about it is that it doesn't constitute a whole, the picture on a favicon should be one button-like thing.

I would have posted this if I had known the term "favicon".

I realize whoever thought of this must have thought they were being clever, but the previous "Lw" is far superior: it is much easier to recognize and spot quickly (which I assume is the whole point of "favicons"), and the colors better reflect those of the site.

The favicon is basically a logo for the site, and should resemble the header as much as possible.

How do you know that the old one was easier to recognize and spot quickly? I think most people are being tricked by introspection because the old one is familiar. I agree that colors matching the site should make it easier to learn, but I'm not sure how strong that effect would be.

The old one consisted of the characters "Lw", the abbreviation for the site name, with colors resembling the site's color scheme. These are all straightforward indicators. While I understand the intention of the new icon, it is not nearly as straightforward.

The new one looks like it could be part of the browser interface. (Though this is partly due to how Firefox displays favicons now; I suspect this would be reduced in other browsers.)

I... suppose if '<' means 'less than' in typical mathematican notation, 'x' must mean 'wrong', to have the total meaning be something like 'less than wrong'...

But that sounds like it means "not even wrong"...

Yeah, it also just occurred to me, after I typed that comment, that wronger than wrong would also be a valid interpretation of this. Perhaps I ought let whoever made the change to interpret it, instead of offering my guesses. :-)

Good point. I guess '<' is meant to be read "less", rather than the standard "less than".

Yup... "less than wrong", absolutely.

I think it's meant as a rebus, rather than as a section.

I had assumed it was a bug (I hadn't looked sufficiently closely). It's... less than ideal.

The colour in particular I don't like, even though I can see why a green cross doesn't work.

[-][anonymous]13y80

It's... less than ideal.

So a red X would be an ideal favicon.

I'm assuming the 'X' is supposed to be a cross, the traditional academic symbol for an answer being wrong (as opposed to check for right answers). The '<' is the 'less than' symbol.

Ahhh, I was wondering how one was supposed to solve for X there :)

Sorry. A new try will be up soon.

(And I've downgraded my self assessment of the quality of my sense of humour. For what it's worth, this one was only intended for a short residency.)

I had trouble seeing it, so here's a direct link to make it easier to reload:

I think it looks like a fish.

No, it's a cone of C4-flavored ice-cream in the process of exploding.

Or maybe an emoticon of someone reacting to a pun.

Ok, so just about everyone is complaining about this and nobody is doing anything. Can someone please tell me who might be responsible so I may contact them and ask them to revert the change?

I don't know who's responsible, but TrikeApps maintain this website. Now, I know Matt (trikeapps boss guy) in real life, and I feel really bad about throwing him under the bus here, so please could Armok, and Armok only, contact him? Fifteen emails will just waste his time.

Also, sorry Matt!

Hmm, if you know him maybe it'd be more effective if you asked him rather than some random stranger? Especially since I am having a hard time coming up with anything to write.

I'm not very scary, and you're not some random stranger. You're Armok_GoB, 800+ karma. (New favicon will be up soon.)

Hehe, thanks! I guess I'm a bit shy in front of people my brain doesn't classify as fungible*.

((* probably not a correct usage, but the statement is technically correct because it's the same brain doing the classifying and is doing it incorrectly in exactly the same way as, uh, itself. :p Also not that this is not necessarily somehting I endorse, and I'm just saying it because I were just reminded I should not be shy. ))

Looks like it's working to me now! thanks! This one is indeed much better!

Sure.

edit - Sent.

I'm using Firefox and it still says "Lw". I don't know whether it was changed back, or just never changed in Firefox. Either way, thanks for teaching me the word Favicon!

I see the old Favicon on both Safari and Chrome. I even emptied the cache in Safari. I wonder why we aren't seeing the same image as the others.

On further inspection, Firefox is doing something interesting. When I type the start of the LW URL in the URL bar, the dropdown suggestion menu has the "<X" favicon, but when I actually go to the page, I get the "Lw" favicon.

How anomalous. I'm finally seeing the "<X" favicon on my phone, but still no chalge on my computer. Are other people running OS X lion?

Pressing shift-F5 would quite likely change it. (If that is what you want.)

Cool tip, but I think the old one is better. The new one looks like a heart and could, as Alicorn pointed out, easy be read as "not even wrong."

I thought it was my browser's fault! Overcoming bias changed too.

Current favicon is best favicon.

I don't mind it.