OpenTree user accounts and GitHub
Open Tree of Life uses GitHub for user authentication. This page explains how that works, and why we do user accounts this way.
Create your account at the GitHub signup page. The free plan gives you everything you will need for interaction with OpenTree. Choose you username carefully - you can change it later, but not all account history and links will follow a new username.
In order to associate your OpenTree curation activity with your GitHub account and to activate your OpenTree profile page, you need to associate an email address with your account. On your profile page, click the Edit profile button near the top right of the page.
The sidebar on the edit page has several different options:
The two of interest here are Profile and Emails. Select Emails and add an email address for your account. Click the green Update profile button when you are done.
You can choose to make your email address public or private. To change whether your email address is visible on your GitHub and OpenTree pages, select the Profile option on the sidebar. To keep your email private, chooise 'Don't show my email address' on the Public email field:
If you want more details about the requirement for an email address, you can see this GitHub help page.
Your OpenTree profile page can show your name, affiliation, website, and email address if you have these fields set on your GitHub profile. For example, compare kcranston's GitHub profile and her OpenTree profile page:
To control what appears on your OpenTree profile page, edit your GitHub profile (there is an Edit button on your OpenTree profile page that will open your GitHub profile).