A clean desktop reflects who you are.
I generally keep my desktop clean from all obscurities such as items downloaded from Firefox. I also try to keep minimal icons, but enjoy a few to my most used locations. I tend to place my icons around the corners of the screen.
Generally I have my drives at top left and important folders at bottom left. That’s about it. It results around three icons if I don’t have any form of media plugged in (SD card, USB etcetera) and leaves me happy when I boot up due to the simpleness.
I also generally stay with clean wallpapers, ones that aren’t too bright nor disrupt the other edges of my screen used by icons. I usually have a wallpaper that represents one of my beloved games as it means something to me (I currently have a half-life one).
Another desktop; is your actual one. I generally keep mine clean, but things do build up as they generally would, but I leave them there so next week I get to go through everything… sigh. It doesn’t help having family regularly use for word processing/ e-mail as well.
At the current time, my actual desk is an utter disaster and I must clean it soon. It has my technology magazines and pieces of paper strewn atop my neatness.. ah well. I am very neat when I do have time though.
Anyways, head off to clean up your desktop as you can most likely live with finding things in the start menu. This was just a coax for you messy people (and trust me, I’ve seen people with row upon row of icons 
) to get out of your nasty habits.
Best,
nikoPSK
Hi Niko:
I tend to have, at the most, two columns of icons on the left side of my desktop. I have also seen people with the entire screen full of icons.
No room for wallpaper. 
On my real desktop around my laptop, which is quite often set up on my kitchen table, my main concern is preventing food from splattering on my keyboard or screen while I am eating.
Put it this way, I am very careful when eating sphaghetti. 
Back several years ago, when I was on Windows, I had about 4 vertical rows of icons on the desktop. When I switched to Ubuntu, I minimized that to about a total of four.
Now that I am on IceWM (with no real desktop) I have no icons and only have Conky running on the right side of the screen.
As far as my physical desktop, it is sorta messy right now. Not really cluttered, but it could be straightened up. I have my speakers, 2-way radio, pencil sharpener, digital clock, cup of pens, stack of papers with a notebook on the bottom, stack of letters in front of the monitor, and my homemade touch-light extension on the left side of the desk that is wired around and connects to the touchlamp on the right side of my desk
Above the actual desk, on the hutch part, is alot of different classic books that I like to read.
Darkghost sets to my right, and Mycroft to my left!
I have the unused computer next to my feet all the time and the other older ones either in my closet or scattered around the house. I just cleaned my desk but I am sure it will look bad again in around two weeks!