When you log in to the website, your profile page is the first that you see. If you have never had anything to do with WordPress before, this will be blank with a greyed-out area as your cover image and a white-on-grey figure as your profile photo. Your website @name will appear in white superimposed on the cover image next to your profile photo.
(If you have a WordPress account elsewhere, and have uploaded information about yourself to WP’s associated Gravitar site, your profile may include a profile image and a bio drawn from that information. If so, and if you’re happy with that leave it. Otherwise you can change the biographical information, and the profile portrait by following the instructions below.)
Below all the grey areas, you’ll see six tabs: Home, Activity, Profile, Notifications, Messages, Friends, Settings
Click on Profile
Under this tab you’ll see four more tabs: View, Edit, Change the Profile Photo, Change the Cover image.
(NOTE: You cannot change your bio here. We’ll get on to that!)
Taking these tabs in reverse order…
Under Change the Cover Image, you can upload a picture from your hard disc. For the best results make sure to upload an image that is larger than 1300px wide, and 225px tall. You should be able to see the picture replace the grey block at the top of the page.
Under Change the Profile Photo, you can upload a picture from your hard disc. For the best results, upload an image that between 500px by 500px and 1000px by 1000px. You will be able to crop the picture once you’ve uploaded it, so it doesn’t have to be square, but making your picture square before you upload it gives you better control over the final image. Again, once you’ve uploaded it, you should see your portrait replace the white-on-grey figure outline.
Under Edit you’ll see a number of fields. You can add direct URLs (links) to your website and to your social media accounts. Website Admin can add new fields. Let the administrator(s) know which new fields you would like. Only those fields with a link will be visible on your profile. They will appear to the right of your portrait photo, under the cover image.
To edit your bio, in the first set of tabs (Home, Activity, Profile, etc.) click on Home.
Scroll down a little and you should see a clickable link “Edit your bio”. Click on it.
This takes you to a section of the website “behind the scenes”. There is a black sidebar to the left, a black bar across the top of the page and you can see your profile photo with the title: Profile Picture next to it. Directly above the words Profile Picture, you’ll see Biographical Info, and next to that a text box with under it: “Share a little biographical information to fill out your profile. This may be shown publicly.”
Write or paste your bio into the text box.
Pens Around the World recommend that you write a short bio in the third person, as you would like it to appear in a book perhaps. But write however you like. Just remember this bio, together with your profile portrait, will appear under every post you publish on the website.
Take a moment to scroll up and down this page.
Apart from the Biographical Info, note that you can reset your password from this page.
Make sure you have checked the “Notify me when I get mentioned” box under Forum.
You can also add a Signature which will appear under any message you write to another member in the Forums.
Any further questions? Contact one of the website administrators: @johnnadmin