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Change name of default Mahara user


Andi Becker's profile picture
Posts: 68

28 January 2023, 19:29



How to change the name of the Site Administrator to something else than "mahara"
1. it is written in small letters (does not look good)
2. it will animate people (including hackers) to look for Mahara rather than for the System Name.

Kristina Hoeppner's profile picture
Posts: 4717

30 January 2023, 12:53

Hi Andi,

'mahara' is not the name of the administrator but the shortname of the institution that the admin is in. In this case, the built-in 'site institution' for which you can't change the shortname. Interestingly, for 'proper' institutions, the actual name of the institution is used but that's not the case for the site institution.

One possibility would be to not display 'mahara' because the info that they are a site admin is still displayed when they are in an institution. I've filed a wishlist item for that.

Cheers

Kristina

Andi Becker's profile picture
Posts: 68

30 January 2023, 22:53

The problem with naming it "Mahara" - the institution - is that people get misled as they have usually no idea at all what Mahara is and then call up and say we should remove them or that we got hacked - Mahara is usually also the default institution if no other institution had been chosen. Much better would be to name that institution "No Institution", "No Institution Chosen" or "Please Choose and Institution" or at least give a way to be able to name it what you want, i.e. the name of the Site itself as that would at least be related to the site and the people won't get worried about that their privacy or other security is at stack. Thanks for addressing it!

Kristina Hoeppner's profile picture
Posts: 4717

31 January 2023, 7:48

Hi Andi,

You can rename the 'mahara' institution with the title that is displayed. Right now though, it's not used on the profile, which can be addressed. It's not high on our team's priority list though, so if you can figure out how to change the query to display your selected site title that you see in the institution settings, then go for it and make the change on your site or even better submit a patch. 😊

I always recommend that organisations do set up a 'proper' institution even when there is no other organisation using the site. You have more roles available and can be more flexible in terms of giving different people access.

Cheers

Kristina

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