While going through the old database I saw that over 300 members registered with their student numbers as usernames. Now normally when you register on a website you choose a memorable username, not an 8-digit number! I can only believe that students did this because it was a Unisa-related site. Some people even thought it was part of Unisa. I’m sure I could’ve got away with asking people to pay their study fees into my account (thinking back on the complaints I got about study fees!)
On the new WikiStudent I want people to create an account with a memorable username, preferably your first name (because who is going to distinguish between users 33584348 and 34624412?). More importantly, if you’re not going to edit the wiki you shouldn’t create an account at all!
When you register on WikiStudent, as part of the profile completion process you get to choose an avatar (a picture or icon representative of you / your mood / your beliefs… you get the idea).
Today I pulled down all the avatars from the old WikiStudent and also had a look at some stats, to see which ones students preferred. The most popular one by far (there are exactly 50 members who use it) is this one:
And here’s one of the new ones I will be adding (to replace the avatars that nobody selected).
Because non-internetty people don’t know what avatars are, I’m going to call them “profile pics” on the new site so that more people will click on the link! In the past only 10% of members had an avatar for their profile. This is just one of the many areas where I’d like to see an increase in member participation. We’ll see if the name change makes a big difference…