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Wiki registration username capitalization

Posted: 04 Apr 2016 21:51
by MarkDBlackwell
Recently, I registered for CPDL's ChoralWiki. However, my chosen username (all lowercase) was altered: the first letter became uppercase.

Now, I don't object to this requirement, per sé. It's just that, had I known in advance my first name would be capitalized, I'd have capitalized my last name and middle initial, too.

In other words, I was surprised by the user interface.

IMO, capitalizing only the first name looks bad. (I admit this is a matter of taste.)

Anyway, in light of the above, I'd like to suggest some administrator add text to the registration process to inform new users that the first letter of their proposed username will become capitalized. Perhaps appropriate as well would be providing example usernames, including one with embedded blanks.

So, IMO, the Wiki page Special:RequestAccount would be better if it contained the following additional language immediately before the "username" box:

Code: Select all

The first letter will become capitalized. Spaces and periods may be embedded. For example (don't enter the quotes): "Aliceuser", "AliceAUser", or "Alice A. User".
BTW, I registered again with a username capitalized to my liking. Soon, I will email the administrator who registered my unwanted username and ask him to delete it. :)

Re: Wiki registration username capitalization

Posted: 07 Apr 2016 16:13
by choralia
ChoralWiki makes use of the MediaWiki software (the same used by Wikipedia), which capitalizes the first letter of all pages. User pages are pages like all the others (they just belong to a specific namespace), so they inherit the same capitalization rules.

I merged (and deleted) the unwanted username into the desired one.

Max