LESSWRONG
LW

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.

[-]Douglas_Knight14y10

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.

[-]Dreaded_Anomaly14y70

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.

[-]Sniffnoy14y30

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.)

[-]ArisKatsaris14y110

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'...

[-]Alicorn14y110

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

[-]ArisKatsaris14y90

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. :-)

[-]pragmatist14y00

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

[-]dvasya14y00

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

[-]fubarobfusco14y-10

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

[-]wedrifid14y80

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]14y90

It's... less than ideal.

So a red X would be an ideal favicon.

[-]wedrifid14y20

Hah!

[-]pragmatist14y80

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.

[-]The Dao of Bayes14y00

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

[-]matt14y60

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.)

[-]Paul Crowley14y50

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

[-]Bobertron14y40

I think it looks like a fish.

[-]hairyfigment14y00

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.

[-]Armok_GoB14y10

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?

[-]shokwave14y20

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!

[-]Armok_GoB14y10

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.

[-]matt14y20

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

[-]Armok_GoB14y10

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. ))

[-]Armok_GoB14y00

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

[-]shokwave14y20

Sure.

edit - Sent.

[-]Normal_Anomaly14y10

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!

[-]ahartell14y10

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.

[-]Normal_Anomaly14y00

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.