Talk:PNG
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[edit] This should point to Papua New Guinea
- Hi, I think that on the basis of common usage "PNG" should point initially to Papua New Guinea rather than Portable Network Graphics.
Google searches:
- "Papua New Guinea" PNG: about 62,000,000 hits.
- "Portable Network Graphics" PNG: about 415,000 hits.
That's a pretty overwhelming result. Can anyone come up with a convincing argument to the contrary? Cheers, Wantok (toktok) 12:31, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- Yes. PNG is the primary name for "Portable Network Graphics". Your results show the opposite of what you think they do. There are many more references for the file format as "PNG" than as "Portable Network Graphics". You're getting so few matches for the file format because "Portable Network Graphics" is so rarely used;. Thus someone is far more likely to be looking for the file format as "PNG" than "Portable Network Graphics".
- Indeed, someone looking up the PNG format often won't even know what the expansion is. Whereas someone looking for Papua New Guinea will know perfectly well what it's proper name is, and is unlikely to expect a search for the abbreviation "PNG" to necessarily come up with the country as opposed to any other use of "PNG".
- There may be an argument for PNG going straight to the disambiguation page, but no way should it go straight to Papua New Guinea over the file format. "PNG" is the format's preferred name, and the expansion was an after-the-fact construction on the grounds that acronyms have to expand to something. "PNG" is just a short-hand for the country, and is definitely not the preferred form of its name.
- Indeed, until about a month ago, the "Portable Network Graphics" article was called "PNG", and previous votes to move it failed. But someone recently moved it regardless... --KJBracey 12:55, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- I take your point; and agree that going to a dab page is better than going direct to Papua New Guinea, in that case. My main reasoning for it going to a dab page rather than direct to Portable Network Graphics is that clearly a large proportion of the total usage of the term "PNG" refers to Papua New Guinea. A search for just PNG returns 105 million hits; so the result above shows that a majority (62m) of those hits also includes the phrase "Papua New Guinea". Personally I have nothing but respect for the PNG format (as a graphic designer, I create PNG files daily), and I think going to a dab page is a sensible result. Cheers, Wantok (toktok) 13:21, 14 September 2007 (UTC)