Please vote - proposal to change the terminology from "Moodle Network" to "MNet"

Please vote - proposal to change the terminology from "Moodle Network" to "MNet"

by David Mudrák -
Number of replies: 5
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Hi!

Moodle English language pack and documentation still talks about "Moodle Network", "Moodle Networking" etc. But the concept of Moodle network services is not limited to connecting Moodle servers only - e.g. Mahara can talk to Moodle pretty well. In the future, more applications may use Moodle networking features (even those whose name does not start with "M" smile).
There is a proposal to call our networking framework as "MNet" (maybe with some nice logo?) and modify all current strings and documentation accordingly (mainly mnet.php).
This should help to prevent somewhat confusing terms when connecting Moodle and Mahara.
If you are for this change, please vote at MDL-16762. If you have an objection, please reply here or in the tracker.
Thanks in advance.
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In reply to David Mudrák

Re: Please vote - proposal to change the terminology from "Moodle Network" to "MNet"

by Howard Miller -
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Can we change it - if we are changing it - to something more meaningful. Unhelpfully, I can't think of anything right now. "MNet" just means nothing and a logo probably won't help.

A part of me says it *is* Moodle Networking as the standard was defined by Moodle. It's then clear where to go to find more information if you encounter the technology.
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In reply to David Mudrák

Re: Please vote - proposal to change the terminology from "Moodle Network" to "MNet"

by Martín Langhoff -
We weren't going to write 'moodlenetwork' all over the code, that's why we used "mnet" smile Using "mnet" has some advantages, mainly that it is a unique term, made of a single short word (hence google-friendly).

On the other hand, MD has fought long and hard to keep barriers of entry low low low for users and developers. I am partially in favour of raising barriers of entry for developers, specially in the core of moodle. But for end users... using "technical" terms, even if made up is raising those barriers of entry.

It is a valid thing to argue that mnet is already hard enough without funny words, and that efforts in simplifying it are needed.

Either way, this is a tricky usability design thing. I don't think a popularity vote is the right way to settle usability stuff -- I trust MD's judgement on this. He gets my vote.
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In reply to Martín Langhoff

Re: Please vote - proposal to change the terminology from "Moodle Network" to "MNet"

by Howard Miller -
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It occurred to me the other day how long it was since I made any contribution to core Moodle but it long ago fell into the hands of a relative small band of professional Moodle developers. Inevitable I suppose.

However, what matters to me a lot is that all the APIs, plugin interfaces and other external interfaces are clear and well documented as working with that stuff is now very much my day job. It's just a name, of course, but anything to make things easier to work with and docs to find is very welcome.
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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Please vote - proposal to change the terminology from "Moodle Network" to "MNet"

by David Mudrák -
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> anything to make things easier to work with and docs to find
> is very welcome

Thanks for this point. In the tracker, I have described a case when, for example, we use words "FooBar Moodle site" even thought FooBar is a Mahara site. That is the main problem.

Usability test - take a Moodle administrator and let her/him set up networking with a Mahara site. Is she/he starts reading about how to do it, it is still about "remote Moodle site", "remote Moodle user", "Moodle networking" etc.
That is the issue - the UI has to be reviewed.
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In reply to David Mudrák

Re: Please vote - proposal to change the terminology from "Moodle Network" to "MNet"

by Subodh Iyengar -
Actually there is already an open source project with the name MNET
http://mnetproject.org/
When I first encountered the MNET XML-RPC of Moodle, I confused it with this project and some moodle developers clarified that MNET XML-RPC was not in fact the MNET project.
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