Although I believe this 'issue' has not much to do with things being a correct verb or noun, Digital Doctor
does have a point. It is not much use arguing about the meaning of words, because it has been made clear that:
Yeah, message count is applicable to all messages. It may not be particular inherent at this point, but with a different system (say a blog or article system with comments), it will aggregate across them. We do want to get profile messages into the search so they they'll show up in that postings tab
No, not at this time. As the concept of the message count is actually content unaware, this is more complex than you might think. (Though by default, only messages in the forums count, this isn't necessarily the long term goal.)
So, the word 'message(s)' is meant to represent every form of content instead of only forum postings. If this is the definition given to this word by the developers, then that's the way it is
.
But...
There
is no other content available then forum postings on XenForo in it's current state. Except for profile postings. But even those profile postings are
not included in the 'message' count. So -to be nitpicking- the phrase 'Message Count' in the Membercard is not quite appropriate. It should be 'Post Count' in the
current state of XenForo. This will make it also
consistent with the user's profile, where the related tab is called [Postings], because that tab also only consists of forum
postings. Exactly like Digital Doctor pointed out.
I don't really mind that much which word is used for what, as long as the
consistency is kept in place.
Another example is the phrase 'Your Content' in the UDM (User Dropdown Menu
). This brings you to exactly the same results as if you would go to the [Postings] tab in your profile if I see it correctly. Is it indeed correct that 'Your Content' only displays the forum posts you've made? Then this phrase is also a bit confusing, because 'Your Content' implies (as it is with 'Message Count') that it is about more content then just your forum postings....
Also, when you go to the [Postings] tab in your profile, at the bottom of that list you have 2 links: 'Find all content by Grover' and 'Find all threads by Grover. 'This 'Find all content by Grover' is -logically- the same as the 'Your Content' in your UDM. For me I often need to think a bit when I click on 'Find all content by Grover'... because I somehow think this will give me
more content then my Postings. I am in the [Postings] tab, so having a different phrase called 'all
content' in that same tab-overview makes it not so clear. I know it is nitpicking and once you know what it represents, you
know. Just saying it's not that clear at first use really.
IMHO, in the current state of XenForo, 'Message Count' should be renamed as 'Post Count'. And 'Your Content' / 'Find all content by Grover' would be more clear if it was just called 'Your Postings' / 'Find all postings by Grover'.
But obviously it's all done for future extensions. Mike confirmed that they want profile messages showing up in the [Postings]-tab. The phrase/tabname [Postings] would then still be appropriate anyway, since they (forum posts and profile posts) are both called
posts in the first place.
My 2 cents.