Location of ini/config files in linux/unix?

Question

Two questions, really:

1. Is there a standard/convention regarding the placement on configuration files?

   For system or quasi-system programs they see

Answer 1

For user configuration I've noticed a tendency towards moving away from individual ~/.myprogramrc to a structure below ~/.config. For example, Qt 4 uses ~/.config// with the default settings of QSettings. The major desktop environments KDE and Gnome use a file structure below a specific folder too (not sure if KDE 4 uses ~/.config, XFCE does use ~/.config).