I was giving the mdl_user table a critical look and from a normalization/flexibility perspective think that we can do a little better. Currently we have individual fields for icq, skype, yahoo, aim, and msn. These are all types of instant messaging. As work on Messaging 2.0 progresses, it strikes me that this data would better be stored in a separate table that would allow flexibility in what services are used on the site. If a new IM server comes out (for example Google talk) we do not have to keep adding fields to the mdl_user table. I think we should have a table of IM providers that we support and then create a table called something like mdl_user_improviders (id, userid, providerid). Peace - Anthony

http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-10107
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:Messaging_2.0