2008/11/29 K. Peachey p858snake@yahoo.com.au:
It's been fixed in r44013 and replaced with a lightbulb! https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16481 although i think that will still be confusing. you can see a demo of it here http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Special:Statistics?uselang=en
It's not ideal, but it's certainly better. When I see an inexplicable symbol on a webpage, my first thought is to hover the mouse over it and hope for some kind of explanation.