Paratext registration: how does it work?

Question

Can someone explain the Paratext registration process to me? When a new user or their project leader or support person fills out the form on paratext.org , who should expect to get a reply confirming that the registration has been approved? The user, the person who enters their address in the Completed By: field, or the administrator(s) of the project that is entered in the Translation / Publishing Project: field?

How is the application assessed? As far as I’m aware, when we have done registrations, our project manager has not been emailed and asked to confirm that the new user is a bona fide member of the project. But if that’s not done, any Joe Bloggs could register and get approved.

Answer 1

A couple more questions:

• Can a user fill in their name in their own alphabet, or does it have to be in Latin letters?
• Can a username be in non-Latin letters?
• What happens when a user requests a name that’s already been assigned (not unlikely for common names like “John Smith”)?

My username for PT is my name, but for the paratext.org site, it’s a short ID that I use in a number of places (my PT username doesn’t work for the paratext.org site). Is it still possible to have a username for logging in to paratext.org that’s different, or is it now always the same as the PT username?

The form says:

http://paratext.org/user/register:

Please use a pseudonym in this case when completing the fields below for ‘Username’, ‘First Name’, and ‘Last Name’.

But the fields for first name and last name seem to have been removed from the form (I do remember them being there before).

Comments

For the Username, First and Last names you should use Latin letters. In the past, the system would not accept accented characters (it would simply remove them in the approval process if they had been entered). I’m not sure if accents are currently accepted or not.

The First and Last name are found lower down in the registration form. It is the First and Last name that make up the Paratext registration name. The Username is used to access the website.

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anon848905:

The First and Last name are found lower down in the registration form.

Sorry – when I got to Comments, I thought that was the end of the form. That was my mistake, but wouldn’t it be somewhat more conventional to ask for the personal details at the top of the form?

anon848905:

It is the First and Last name that make up the Paratext registration name. The Username is used to access the website.

This is really not clear from the form, and I have to think about it anew every time I fill it in, because I don’t do it that often . Could some clarification be added to the form? And my suggestion above would put the fields that make the username and the registration name next to each other, which I think would help, too.

Answer 2

When someone registers on the Paratext website the request is sent be approved by one of the organization approvers. (SIL has people in each Area who can approve users in that area. Other organizations have their own approvers)

When “Joe Bloggs” requests a registration his request is checked to see if he qualifies under the organization. If there is a question about who he is or whether he should be approved then the person doing the approving should check with the entity for more information. The request might be approved, declined, or forwarded to another organization for approval.

Once “Joe” is approved then an email is sent out to the address listed as the user address. I believe an email also goes to the address in the completed by. It is very important that when the user receives a message asking them to confirm their email address - that they follow those instructions. If that person is unable to do that step then it is better to use the completed by address for the user so that the address is confirmed. If the email address of the user is not verified then the account is removed from the Paratext database and the process must start over.

Paratext does not know who the Administrator for Joe is so it can’t send any information to that person. There is a place where project is tracked, but people enter that information in a variety of ways.

All of this will change when Paratext 8 is released - I’m not sure of all the details so that will have to wait.

Answer 3

Is there a way for an Administrator to find the Registration Names and Registration Codes of his/her team members? On our team we administrators find that users sometimes install on a new laptop only to find that they’ve deleted the years-old email with this data.

So we try to keep a record of them all in a central document. But we’re fallible, too, and for the most recent user to ask for a code, his code was missing from that document.

Answer 4

The registration form, and all the responses that are emailed to the registrant, are in English. Are there any plans to extend this to other languages? Many of our staff know no English at all, so when they receive the msg that says Paratext Registration Approved, they probably don’t even know what the subject line means.

If someone fills in the form for them, and lists themselves as having done that, it seems that the confirmation msgs are not CC’ed to that person’s address, so they are not able to help the registrant know that they can now use PT .

Answer 5

When Paratext 8 comes out (hopefully in 2016) then the registration process will change.
In the meantime I often recommend that if you are filling out a registration for another person that you use your email for the registration (there is a place below for “completed by email”, but if you use your email at the top then the verification request will go to you and you can do the verification. You will also receive the registration code and can then pass it on to the user.

Username = a username that will be used to access the website (not necessarily the user’s name)
Email = the email address associated with this account. It could be the administrator’s email during the initial registration and then get changed later.
Password = the password a user needs to access the website

For the middle section of “Area”, “Bible Society”, etc. it is important that this is filled out as accurately as possible for the user. Entities (such as SIL) are only supposed to approve their own members or members of their projects.

About 1/2 way down the form there is a place for First and Last name. These are what are used to create the “Registration Name”. Accented characters are not allowed here.

Answer 6

anon848905:

About 1/2 way down the form there is a place for First and Last name. These are what are used to create the “Registration Name”. Accented characters are not allowed here.

I think that this information should be explicitly stated on any revised form for PT 8 or earlier. I’ve only registered three or four users, but it’s fooled me more than once, and I’ve ended up with a registration name that I don’t want.

Similarly, the Username field should say that it’s only for the website login.

Maybe the username and registration name should be always the same? Most of our people log in to the website so rarely that they don’t remember their usernames .