Usability/Glossary

This page is a collection of technical terms that happen to escape into UIs and to confuse potential users.

XMPP

Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol - the underlying technical protocol used for chat, IoT and other things. Based on XML.

Jabber®

The original name of the XMPP protocol, mainly used in the context of instant messaging. Registred trademark with some usage limitations.

"Jabber" is to "XMPP" what "email" is to "IMAP" and "web" is to "HTTP". Or at least that would be a good analogy in the context of IM.

JID (Jabber ID)

... / user address / XMPP identifier.

The JID is an address, typically in the form user@domain, identifying an entity on the XMPP network.

Recommended term: "Jabber ID" in user-facing software.

Roster (contact list)

The roster is specified in RFC 6121 and contains all contacts of a given user, grouped/tagged by user-defined terms (see below).

Recommended term: "contact list"

Roster group

Each entry in the roster can have zero or more "groups" attached. Nesting is supported via XEP-0083, but not very common.

Recommended term: "tag"

Presence subscription

The technical means to see your friends' online status. Sometimes there is asymmetric presence subscription ("from" and "to"), which is typically not needed in IM context and only confuses users.

Recommended terms: ideally hidden behind "add contact", possibly "request authorization"?

MUC (Multi-User Chat)

group chat / chat room / channel

A MUC is a chatroom with a dedicated JID, typicall hosted on a MUC service that is part of an XMPP server. MUC protocol specification

Recommended term: "group chat"

MIX (Mediated Information eXchange)

MIX is a potential successor to MUC, as soon as it gets fleshed out. MIX protocol specification

Recommended term: "group chat" (users shouldn't need to care whether their chats are hosted by MUC, MIX or some other technology)