Lack of interest suggest phrase 'personal message' be changed to 'direct message'

[Adam Howard]

PM's as they are more commonly called are often associated as 'private' messages. In XenForo they're known as 'personal' messages. Neither seem to reflect with the current times when you have 10+ or more people inside one of these PM's, nor the common lingo (terminology) that the next generation seems to use, which is direct messages or DM's.

I assume this terminology started on Twitter and people on Facebook refer it as such as well. Recently I've found people increasingly calling it a DM on the forums I visit as well, so this 'terminology' is crossing into forums as well.

 

[Amaury]

They're actually referred to as "personal conversations," not messages, but I personally think it works fine as is.

 

[Adam Howard]

They're actually referred to as "personal conversations," not messages, but I personally think it works fine as is.

Actually.... Looking at the phrases now.... I do not see "personal" conversations in the phrases at all. It is simply, "conversations". Which is funny, because I do recall them being referenced as such here (as you have pointed out).

So I assume all one would need do is change, 'conversations' into 'messages'

 

[Amaury]

So I assume all one would need do is change, 'conversations' into 'messages'

I would guess so, yes.

 

[Arantor]

I suspect the only reason for calling them personal messages is because all the other forum software out there does so, and as such in the spirit of familiarity (since a number of us are veterans at various forum software packages), we tend to use terminology that is well known so that other people know what we're talking about.

What I do find funny is that, years ago, when forums were just gradually introducing the idea, some of them even called it 'instant messaging' on the basis that it was a message directly from person to person that could be read straight away...

Thing is, though, in XF's paradigm, we never deal with messages individually. It's an entire conversation and with the 'invite new people into the conversation' concept, we can't call it anything other than a conversation, nor can we add the word 'private' because while conversations are broadly private, they can become less private if one were to invite others (a state of play not seen elsewhere)

Also, please don't infect forums with Twitter terminology, kthx

 

[Adam Howard]

I suspect the only reason for calling them personal messages is because all the other forum software out there does so, and as such in the spirit of familiarity (since a number of us are veterans at various forum software packages), we tend to use terminology that is well known so that other people know what we're talking about.

What I do find funny is that, years ago, when forums were just gradually introducing the idea, some of them even called it 'instant messaging' on the basis that it was a message directly from person to person that could be read straight away...

Thing is, though, in XF's paradigm, we never deal with messages individually. It's an entire conversation and with the 'invite new people into the conversation' concept, we can't call it anything other than a conversation, nor can we add the word 'private' because while conversations are broadly private, they can become less private if one were to invite others (a state of play not seen elsewhere)

Also, please don't infect forums with Twitter terminology, kthx

I remember people calling them IM's I think some people even called them, emails.

I get the familiarity of keeping to the tried and used standard, but I also get that the forum generation is getting older and language changes overtime as generations come and go.

 

[Paul B]

Officially, they were originally Personal Discussions, then they became Personal Conversations, and now they are simply Conversations.