Talk:Favicon

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[edit] Regardless

Regardless of the intentions of the user who added it, does this link add anything that is not already present in the article? http://www.pageicon.com/favicon_pageicon_faq/index.html Aranel ("Sarah") 14:15, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Group harrassment and stalking of newbie by [MZajac] and his friends continues

Dear Sarah, to this article and added website to Source Links (it is allowed by Wikipedia rules)

I'm sorry, but the FAQ format is not appropriate to an encyclopedia. The information you added is generally included in the article text, and it was there before you first started adding your link, so I removed it. I would like for someone who is not involved with the site in question to offer an opinion. Aranel ("Sarah") 17:41, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Peace. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Vitaly

[edit] Images?

Would it be okay to 1-Put all of the images together into one collage (so it can be set as a regular article illustration and not at the top like that), 2-Crop them so that only the most relevant part shows, and 3-Substitute Wikipedia for the site? (I think this would be more useful, because folks who are browsing here can add this to their favorites and see the effects for themselves.)

Aranel ("Sarah") 17:09, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)


1. Ok, I just need to learn how to do t. 2,3 - I have inserted here ready images from my website and I don't want to waste my time creating new ones because you just want me to delete address of my website from the images aren't you?

I went ahead and did it. My primary reason was that there really was no easy way to format the article with three separate images. One image works much better, and using Wikipedia as the example website keeps all of us safe from any charges of favoritism; it's also a more relevant example, since, as I mentioned above, anyone can add Wikipedia to their favorites right at this very minute and see what it looks like. I also moved up the part of the "troubleshooting" section that I thought was relevant to the main article—this is not a technical support site, after all. I realize you're just getting a handle on how things work around here—it can take a little practice to figure out all of the formatting! Aranel ("Sarah") 23:17, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
1. Thank you for images! but...
2. Don't hide you real reasons with that what you described.
3. You removed another one my link after Bookmark article where it was useful with link to this article. So YOU CHECKED WHERE I HAD ADDED MY LINK and find a reason HOW TO REMOVE IT! How can I call this!? STALKING!
4. After we both declared peace - you are stalking me again.
5. Stop stalking me - better write some useful article! AS I DO!

Vitaly 07:37, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Where have you moved troubleshooting section????? IT IS USEFUL! Stop editing my contributions this way! You removed useful information!

Aranel, If you continue stalking all my contributions (editing, removing links) I will Request for arbitration because discussion gives no results!

Please don't shout. There's no need. I just wanted to drop in here so that I could be a part of the discussion, if needed. I hope, though, that this can resolve peacefully. Vitaly, as I noted at Requests for arbitration, troubleshooting sections have no place here -- we're not a product guide, we're an encyclopedia. For example, at Internal combustion engine, we tell you what an engine is and what its parts do, but we don't offer suggestions for what to do if a piston is making a funny noise, or if your car won't start in the morning. That's your own business, and there's plenty of sites on the web that will sell or give away that kind of info. We're here to be an encyclopedia, and that goal doesn't include troubleshooting Web site problems, that I can see. Jwrosenzweig 15:21, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Press Release

Instead of reasonable resolution of conflict you have grown this tiny issue of some User:Mzajac having personal attack and stalking on me, which continues like a chain reaction between his friends (User:Mzajac -> User:Timo Honkasalo ->User: Aranel -> User:HappyDog -> User:Farside -> User:Mirv) - you can easily tell that they have common interests and when one cannot answer reasonably to a discussion, his friend takes a turn, to a HUGE issue of group harrassment and deletion of everything possible.

I am going to write "Wikipedia: Crash Course" article on major web news sources and you will receive public attention, what you will say then? Don't you think it is self-destructive way to your community?

Wikipedia is ONLINE and FREE Encyclopedia. It is itself built based on links and it cannot exist without the rest of WWW.

Principles of Wikipedia broken by the above mentioned members:

  • 1. Assume good faith. Wikipedia has worked remarkably well so far based on a policy of nearly complete freedom to edit. People come here to collaborate and write good articles. Wikipedia:Wikiquette
  • 2. Avoid reverts and deletions whenever possible, and stay within the three-revert rule except in cases of clear vandalism. Explain reversions in the edit summary box. Wikipedia:Wikiquette
  • 3. "Don't ignore questions. If another disagrees with your edit, provide good reasons why you think it's appropriate" Wikipedia:Wikiquette
  • 4. "Concede a point, when you have no response to it; or admit when you disagree based on intuition or taste. Don't make people debate positions you don't really hold."Wikipedia:Wikiquette

Vitaly 17:11, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] link down

the external link Nilay's World (http://nilayz.ahost4free.com/html/fav.html) - Get your own Favicon for your site. isnt working. if it doesnt come back in aweek or two it should be deleted.

[edit] HTML or XHTML?

The code example provided in the body of the article will be understood by context as HTML but it is in fact XHTML. Only in the Requirements section is the XHTML syntax referred to specifically, but *all* the examples are XHTML. Suggest changing code syntax to HTML unless specifically identified as --Nantonos 22:06, 17 October 2005 (UTC)XHTML

JShook 18:34, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I think its better to teach people XHTML syntax from the start. --Nantonos 00:05, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. To each his or her own. However, if so, you should then not present your code example as HTML. It is not. You also do not explain the XHTML doctype which a page containing such code must have. By throwing into the article a fragment of XHTML without supporting/explaining that choice in the body of the article is likely to confuse the vast majority of people who are using HTML. I believe your didactic motivations do not belong in an article, particularly when they create inaccuracies. JShook | Talk 14:48, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
In fact, 'HTML' includes both the newer XHTML and the older, allegedly SGML-based HTML 4.x 3.x 2.x and 1. Both HTML 4 and XHTML 1.0 require a DOCTYPE, so your point makes no sense. --Nantonos 19:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I have never seen the term "HTML" used to include XHTML, although it certainly refers to the various versions of HTML. My point about the doctype is that if someone is writing an HTML page with a correct HTML doctype, your example code will cause page validation to fail since it is in the wrong language for that page as specified by the doctype. This makes sense to me. What the article says is logically equivalent to writing "The Russian word for 'library' is "biblioteca'" because you think everybody should learn Spanish.
If you have never seen it, then have a look at the World Wide Web Consortium site. To counter your argument - XHTML is case sensitive and uses lower case tag names. Older, pre-XHTML HTML is case insensitive. The example, which was not originally mine, used upper case tag names. So the previous example would have cuased validation to fail :) --Nantonos 22:06, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I am familiar with the W3C. In fact a friend of mine used its validation service to test my contention. He placed the code fragment for linking to the favicon which appears in the article in an HTML page with this doctype:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
Using the W3C validator he got the following errors:
Error Line 7 column 6: end tag for element "HEAD" which is not open.
Error Line 8 column 5: document type does not allow element "BODY" here.
(And yes, I know these are not meaningful error messages, but the result of the validator's parsing having been thrown out of synch by the closure of the XHTML tag in an HTML document.)
This should come as no surprise since the article implies the code sample is HTML while it is in fact XHTML. Making the trivial edit to the code sample to make it proper HTML allows the page to validate completely JShook | Talk 13:34, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
  1. XHTML is the best, latest W3C standard, so when giving code examples it is best to use XHTML.
  2. It is very easy for most users to understand that it is XHTML.
  3. Even if people don't realise that it is XHTML, and use it in a regular HTML document, it will generally still validate.
--Wulf 04:54, 1 January 2006 (UTC) Please drop a note on my talk page if you reply, I might not remember to check here. Thanks :)
For the reasons given by Wulf, I've changed this to XHTML and changed the article to be a little more clear that it is XHTML and not HTML. ---Remember the dot 21:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
"Even if people don't realise that it is XHTML, and use it in a regular HTML document, it will generally still validate."
This is nonsense; it's the worst kind of syntax error, an unexpectedly closed/ended element. ¦ Reisio 03:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Privacy

"Originally Internet Explorer only used favicons for bookmarks, which created a minor privacy concern in that a site owner could tell how many people had bookmarked their site by checking the access logs to see how many people downloaded the favicon.ico file. However since modern browsers now use the favicon in the URL bar, that concern is no longer relevant."

I believe that the privacy concern is as relevant as ever since internet explorer has the great mayority of users and it's very simple to only count its bookmarks (filtering by its user agent). The phrase should probably be changed.

Fuligen 19:01, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Surely the point was never that only IE used favicons, it was that it only used them in bookmarks, and thus a download of the favicon signified a user bookmarking the file. Now, however, browsers including IE display the icon in address bars etc every time you visit the site, so access logs for favicon.ico reveal no more (indeed, much less) information than the access logs for the actual pages.
I've expanded the sentence a bit to be more explicit, and thus hopefully somewhat clearer. - IMSoP 18:51, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

What effect is there on my privacy if someone knowing that 48,000 people have bookmarked a site?

- The former 134.250.72.176 05:38, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

Isn't it a little presumptuous for an encyclopedia to dictate rules that you should do for "optimal browser support"? - The former 134.250.72.176 05:42, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Not really - if you want "optimal browser support" (a slightly pompous but pretty unambiguous phrase), these are the things which, objectively, will help you get it. We're not "dictating" anything, because we're not saying that you must do these things, just that they are likely to lead to a particular state (a favicon appearing in many browsers). Now, there's the old recurring argument of whether an encyclopedia should be giving instructions rather than just plain "information", but I don't want to get it into that here... - IMSoP 17:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Well said. There is, of course, an argument against this kind of 'tutorial-style' information being in an encyclopedia article. My feeling would be that this kind of information is useful in the context (the WP article appears very high on a Google search for 'favicon'), and relying wholly on external links for advice like this is not a good strategy. Rufous 19:19, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

A little concerned about something that looks like a potential inaccuracy in there:

"The rel attribute must contain a space-delimited list of link types, so a two-word link type would not be understood correctly by conforming web browsers."

THis is given as the reason to include both. However, since the two-word link type Microsoft came up with is 'shortcut icon' and the one-word conforming one is 'icon' and the attribute is a space-delimited list of link types, then a properly conforming browser would read the rel types of the link tag as 'shortcut' and 'icon' -- one of which is the right one.

So, in other words, IE should see 'shortcut icon' as the rel attribute, and Mozilla should see ('shortcut','icon') as the rel attribute. Since Mozilla's looking for 'icon' rel, and IE is looking for 'shortcut icon' rel, then 'shortcut icon' should do the trick in both cases, shouldn't it? 69.181.120.218 08:11, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Favicons on Wikis

I don't know if this is the right place to ask, if not just delete this please, but how can you set/change a Favicon on a Wiki? I ask because I and a few friends do have a free ElWiki (http://www.elwiki.com/) and wanted to know if we could add a favicon there.

[edit] Why do my favicons disappear after a cache clear?

And why can't I get them back? Shouldn't this be mentioned in the article?70.25.138.179 02:25, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

No, Wikipedia's not a computer help desk. — mark ✎ 10:15, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
The answer depends on the browser you're using. You often have to put a page in your favorites again for the favicon to show up there and in the adress bar. — mark ✎ 07:48, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia icon page

This was rightfully removed from the article but it may be usefull here: List of free icon resources is maintained at Wikipedia:Icons -Ravedave 19:44, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IE (any version) problem

As a reader, not a contributor, I was disappointed not to see a discussion of my favicon issue with IE. That is that on the Links Toolbar, I can't remove the text accompanying the favicon because IE used the text to name the file associated with the URL. That is, for the New York Times, say, I have to have some unique letter in the Description next to the icon. In Firefox and Opera and Konqueror I can delete the Description of all of the sites indicated on the equivalent of the Links Toolbar and just use the favicon to identify the site. This means that my IE Links Toolbar has irrelevant (and ugly and space-wasting) text on it that I don't need in other browsers. I'm searching for a solution to this problem in IE. gv 21 October 2006.

[edit] Which resolution is correct to display?

If a favicon.ico contains multiple resolutions of the same height and width, does anyone know how to tell which would be the correct one for the browser to show? Examples: [1] [2] [3] [4]

I suspect it's the LAST resolution in the file of the desired size, but it might also be the resolution with the most number of supported colors at the desired size. --Foobody 18:55, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

You might expect the highest resolution icon to be favored, but many browsers instead favor a 4-bit icon in a multi-res set. See (http://www.informationgift.com/ud/faviconic/) for a breakdown of which browser does what and additional browser variance (someone already added the link as an external resource, thx). --Lewisfrancis 06:47, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Making favicons work

If you search your computer hard drive for "*.ico" files, you may find a number to play with. Irfanview is a free image tool that can edit files of this type. I put favicon.ico files in some website root locations (where the home page is). Firefox 1.5.x did not display them. Opera 9 did display them. IE 5.5 did not display them. In Firefox, you can go to the file directly, for example: google.com/favicon.ico. This did also work with my websites, but only partly. The only way I found to get Firefox to start displaying the new icon files correctly was to clear cache: Tools > Options > Advanced > Network > Cache > Clear Now. 69.87.199.132 14:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

This seems like a bug in Firefox. It seems dumb to have to dump the entire cache just to reload the cached (non-existent!) icon. Clicking on Reload *should* always force a reload of the associated favicon. 69.87.199.132 15:08, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't always reloading the favicon defeat the purpose of a cache? --65.93.94.247 13:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editors

  • Favicon Editors - Simple or Fancy web tools for interactively drawing downloadable 16x16 favicons pixel by pixel

The degraeve and mobilefish favicon pixel editors are not true ico editors, but really just interactive generators. They are not capable of loading an ico for editing. If you find a better free online web editor that really can do pixel edits of existing ico files (preferably without requiring Java) please improve the article list of external links. (The free image editor Irfanview can work with ico files, but it is not convenient for pixel editing and seems to have a bug with black-on-transparent or black-on-white ico files.) 69.87.193.125 14:58, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Highly Recommended Link Added / Adobe Photoshop

http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/ came by recommendation of the Administrator at http://www.ozzu.com/ftopic255.html webmaster forum. This was a welcome plugin to those of us who regularly operate Adobe Photoshop to design websites. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Edwardtbabinski (talk • contribs) 00:28, 18 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Adobe Photoshop Ico Plugin- Removing an external link, without a reason

Do not remove the link I have added, "Reisio". When the company created this free plug-in, it was a breakthrough for web designers, unless you can provide another, more qualified link? Adobe Photoshop is after all, industry standard.

I will be more than happy to provide a professional step by step illustrated and instructional guide, for this page with screen shots on how to create a favicon.ico within the Adobe Photoshop Environment, I have ample College education behind me in this field (Multimedia / Web Design). See userpage.

To the editor who removed the two non commercial links which were in dispute for over 12 hours of my time, without providing a single, reasonable explanation You do not seem to understand what a "commercial link" is. You have falsely labled the two links you removed as "commercial" when they certainly are not. They do not charge one dime for services. All items are free, public access. Would you consider Wikipedia's request for donations, commercial? According to your logic, Wikipedia is a commercial site. It both solicits donations and draws in millions of dollars, therefore, Wikipedia itself is commercial.

To better define the issue, websites such as the commercial cybersquatter link - http://yoursite.com/favicon.ico is displayed right in the midst of Favicon - at the top of the page it reads "e-commerce", how much more blatant can the definition of "commercial" be? And http://www.match.com/ which charge fees for use of their services, are "commercial" links, but on numerous occasions certain editors have either overlooked or failed to make such a simple distinction.

I've noticed many of the articles I've created, contributed to or checked over, seem to have been vandalised more than I remember occuring in the past. Admins obviously cannot keep up with the problem. One article I repaired, had escaped attention for at least three days. Since some people insist on driving away legitimate contributors, this is to be expected, and should only expect the problem to become worse in the future. This includes the growing sentiment which has been becoming more and more prevalent around the web, e.g., simply Google Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Posted by Sharon Mooney Updated, 18 February 2007, 17:13 Eastern

That's nice. ¦ Reisio 23:12, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

No sir, you're quite wrong. That's the truth. Do you want a link to a forum where the users refused to accept information from Wikipedia due to its growing "reputation" as an unreliable source?

Here, I will provide it to you pro bono http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3819

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arius Quote: See I want to avoid Wikipedia... and the damn shame is that most of what is written about Arius or Arianism to date is from the opposite point of view so of course it will be 'heretical'. Is there any non-biased sources out there?

Another user states... Here's a collection of articles (which does include wiki)... perhaps you can at least find a proper direction within.... http://www.encyclopedia.edwardtbabinski.us/who/a/arius/

Unfortunately since the notion of Arianism was virtually destroyed by it's rivals, there's not much source material other than the rebuttals of opponents (Athanasius in particular) and who knows how much of that was altered for various reasons.

However, I have often witnessed incoming links to various articles I've researched and composed for the web and mine are regarded as having reputation as a credible source, but Wikipedia shall not have the pleasure of further contributions from myself.

Name - Amelia Fleming, PhD Location - Carlow, Ireland http://www.carlowcollegechristology.blogspot.com/

The only question remains, why have I wasted such an incredible amount of time, on such a wee tiny little troll? Posted by Sharon 18 February 2007

Wikipedia alternative aims to be "PBS of the Web" By Daniel Terdiman, CNET News.com Tuesday , December 20 2005 11:19 AM

By providing a service they're calling "the PBS of the Web," the Digital Universe team hopes to create a new era of free and open access to wide swaths of information on virtually any topic.

"The vision of the Digital Universe is to essentially provide an ad-free alternative to the likes of AOL and Yahoo on the Internet," said Firmage. "Instead of building it through Web robots, we're building it through a web of experts at hundreds of institutions throughout the world."

Their idea is particularly timely given recent questions about Wikipedia's accuracy and credibility. A frequently raised criticism of the constantly growing repository of information has been that the millions of articles created by a worldwide community of contributors are not verified by experts.

Of course, that has always been Wikipedia's modus operandi--that its articles are written and vetted by its community, not by an elite corps of Ph.D.s. Yet there are some who feel that while the site has a satisfying populist appeal, and may be on par with the Encyclopedia Britannica when it comes to accuracy, it still suffers from a lack of true accountability.

By including articles that have been approved by experts, Digital Universe will have such reliability, its founders say.

Source: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/internet/0,39044246,39299490,00.htm

  • Through observation over the past 24 hours, I deduce the editor Reisio shall not be a contributor there. Posted by Sharon 18 February 2007

[edit] Reposted from userpage

Do not remove the link I have added to Favicon. When the company created this free plug-in, it was a breakthrough for web designers, unless you can provide another, more qualified link? Adobe Photoshop is afterall, industry standard.

I will be more than happy to provide a professional step by step illustrated and instructional guide, for this page with screen shots on how to create a favicon.ico within the Adobe Photoshop Environment. I have ample College education behind me in this field to qualify as a contributor on the subject of 'favicons'. Edwardtbabinski 05:17, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

"Do not remove the link I have added."
Buy me some blue nehi cream soda.

What is your problem? Wikipedia is suppose to be monitored by professionals, despite the vandals.

"it was a breakthrough for web designers"
Sure it was. Now they can make whole websites using just Adobe Photoshop alone, and before they had to use Adobe Photoshop _and_ an ICO convertor.
"I have ample College education behind me in this field to qualify as a contributor on the subject of 'favicons'."
This statement makes me think the opposite of what you want me to think.

Why don't you check Westwood College of Technology Dean's List 2004-2005, and see who's listed on it?

¦ Reisio 06:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Re-Posted by Sharon Mooney

Why don't you check Westwood College of Technology Dean's List 2004-2005, and see who's listed on it?"
Got a link? ¦ Reisio 06:30, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

SHARON MOONEY: And may I ask, what business is it of yours? Who has given you the right to stalk and harrass other contributors? Perhaps an Administrator needs to review your conduct.

I meant a link to the dean's list. ¦ Reisio 06:38, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia User guidelines, just when were you given the right to stalk other contributors for personal information? I would love to know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines Your behavior is completely unacceptable according to Wikipedia guidelines.

You specifically asked me to check; got the link or not? ¦ Reisio 07:29, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is your link. Posted by Edwardtbabinski, Sharon Mooney

That's a link to another section of this page, not a dean's list. ¦ Reisio 08:03, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it is none of your business and I truly hope an administrator reviews your conduct. However, for the record, *smile* Link #1 and Link #2 Posted by Edwardtbabinski, Sharon Mooney 3:25 Eastern, 18 February 2007

PDF, figures. ¦ Reisio 17:16, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Do what? PDF is by Adobe Macromedia, industry standard, as I stated earlier. Edwardtbabinski, Sharon Mooney 13:18 Eastern, 18 February 2007

Earlier you stated Adobe Photoshop is an industry standard. ¦ Reisio 18:57, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

PLEASE leave the link to the other site alone too. I have made many "self link," on Wikipedia, because I have contributed photography, art and created articles. The link is perfectly within Wiki standards, since these are Public Access and Royalty Free. I have read the talk page for favicon. Earlier, a link to such downloads were provided http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Favicon#link_down -- but the link was broken, therefore, it was removed. The link I am providing is not broken. I have college work to attend to, and I am not interested in an "edit war". -- Sharon Mooney, 18 February 2007

Due to stalking and harrassment, my userpage now reads: I have chosen to refrain from further contributions on Wikipedia, due to certain obtuse editors who lack the ability to show respect to fellow contributors. Managing several successful websites of my own, I have never had any interest in bullying legitimate contributors on Wikipedia.

For the record, as a favicon aficionado I not only have numerous pages on Free Favicon Downloads but manage a favicon webring which anyone is welcomed to join, and manage a blog on favicons. All free favicon downloads. My contributions here, have been legitimate, but I am aware that some have no further success on the web, than managing a few articles for Wikipedia, and that becomes manifest in the aggressive cyberstalking often seen in "edit wars" between contributors. I simply have no time nor interest in the anxiety which results from such infantile conduct. -- Sharon Mooney, 18 February 2007

[edit] IE7 Does NOT support the GIF or PNG format for favicons.

I'm not sure who added this line to the page, but it does not help developers trying to implement this feature, only to find out it does not work.


Here's a Microsoft developers Blog FAQ on the favicon.

http://blogs.msdn.com/jeffdav/archive/2007/03/01/why-doesn-t-the-favicon-for-my-site-appear-in-ie7.aspx

Question and Answer #4 on the page: Q: I put a favicon.ico on my site as you described, but it still doesn't appear. A: It must actually be a .ico (an Icon) file. Bitmaps, pngs, gifs, etc, will not work. IE7 will download your favicon to the Temporary Internet Files folder and call ExtractIcon() on the file. If this fails, we will show the default icon instead of your favicon. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.164.133.170 (talk) 19:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC).

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../f/a/v/Talk%7EFavicon_3a07.html"