[Dovecot] Confused about Maildir

I'm trying to configure Dovecot 2.0.7. In the Dovecot Wiki for Maildirs it says that Maildirs are almost always located in ~/Maildir. I'm a Linux end user, not a programmer, so I may be wrong in this; but isn't the notation "~/" used for system users only to reference their home page; /home/<user>? If that's the case, then does that mean that Maildirs can only be used with system users and not with vmail accounts?

Glen