Your profile

Your profile is how the community sees you: a card with your name, username, avatar, banner, bio, and counts, plus the fields you choose to show.

The parts of a profile#

The profile fields follow Profile details, and your posts follow the separate private account switch; see Your privacy and your data.

Display name and bio#

Your display name is what people read first, and you can change it whenever you like. Your bio is a short line about you, up to 500 characters.

Your username#

Your username is your public handle and your profile's address. It has 3 to 30 characters: lowercase letters, digits and underscores, starting with a letter (capitals you type are lowercased). You can change it, with two rules worth knowing:

• once every 30 days for free. Changing it again sooner costs credits: Novagora shows the price and asks before charging, and the 30 days start over;
• your old handle stays reserved for a 30-day grace period, so nobody can take it out from under a link somebody shared.

Changing it changes your profile's address, and links to the old one stop resolving immediately. The grace period keeps the old handle from being taken by somebody else; it does not keep the old links working.

Avatar and banner#

Add an avatar — shown cropped to a circle, so a square picture works best — and a banner across the top of your profile.

After you choose one, it may say Still being prepared for a moment while Novagora processes it. If a picture cannot be used, the app says so and asks for a different one rather than leaving an empty slot you cannot explain.

Remove (on the web) or Remove photo and Remove banner (in the app) take a picture away rather than reverting to an older one.

Fields other people see#

Location, website, pronouns, and timezone are optional and each has its own audience. A website must be an ordinary http or https address.

By default each field follows Profile details, except your timezone, which defaults to the people you follow. Overriding one is done per field under privacy settings.

Interests#

Interests are the categories that shape which Spaces and people are suggested to you. They are private — nobody else sees them — and you can hold up to 20. You pick them during setup; there is no other screen for changing them afterwards.

Followers, following, and Spaces#

Your profile links to who follows you, who you follow, and the public Spaces you follow. If you hide your follower and following counts, other people see neither the numbers nor those two lists. Private, suspended, and unavailable Spaces are left out of that last list, which is why it can be shorter than you expect. Show my Spaces on my profile (on the web) or Show my Spaces (in the app), under privacy settings, hides it from everyone else.

Viewing your own profile#

View profile (on the web) or View my public profile (in the mobile app) shows the profile page itself. It is the fastest way to check what a stranger sees — although a viewer who follows you may see more than a signed-out visitor, depending on your privacy settings.