With the home directory as the desktop, one has a very convenient window
into the file system. However, certain files and directories (e.g.
public_html or nsmail) cannot easily be moved or renamed so their icons
tend to clutter the desktop.

It would be nice if Nautilus supported something like .cvsignore for hiding
these icons. As a start, one could have a simple .hide file with a list of
names of ignored files (perhaps supporting globbing like .cvsignore does).
A suitable GUI could then be constructed later.