Comment 21 for bug 452149

@Ben Romer :
I havent marked this bug "wont fix" without putting considerable thought or effort.

Bug 463802 was filed only after discussion with Rodney Dawes [fdo specs maintainer] , and he also agreed that the descriptions could be clearer.
He mentioned it would be updated soon , even if Rodney fixes the description , the apps which misuse the icon far outnumber the apps which use the icon correctly.

I'v tried to look into the usage of the delete icon in several apps and considered filing bugs in each of the concerned apps... but the number of apps misusing the icon are too many.

That was when i noticed the gnome-icon-theme also using the same icon. When i asked the concerned devs , they mentioned that they considered using a shredder but gave up since the problem was too wide spread. Instead have used an icon similar to the humanity icon.

I'v given up on this issue and considered leaving the icon as is. Since , even if the humanity icon is removed , the gnome-icon-theme fallback is gonna use a similar icon.

If this is a huge problem , I could just remove the humanity icon and folks can deal with upstream gnome and the apps directly.
I'v spent way too much time on this issue already :(

IMO, it is easier fixing the apps which use the icon correctly , since they are just a few apps.

You can check the gnome-icon at:
http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-icon-theme/tree/gnome
http://people.freedesktop.org/~jimmac/icons/#git