South students have the option of avoiding a newsfeed being cluttered with the pictures of their classmate’s schedules the week before school starts.

Meet Wikiroster, a website made by South students, for South students. According to Kendrick Lau, co-founder of Wikiroster, the basic idea of the website is to have a space where students can see who is in their classes before school starts.

“How it works is when [students] receive their schedule in the summer they can come to our website and they can enter their schedule and we can show them who else has the same teachers as them [and] who else has the same class and period as them,” Lau said.

According to Lau, the website began two years ago when Jason Lin approached him during their senior year with the idea of creating a website where students can share their schedules before school starts.

“What he set out to do was find a solution for the spamming of the Facebook newsfeed,” Lau said.

Lau explained that the website was first launched to students of South and Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) the summer of 2012. They decided to take the website one step farther the next year by adding senior Jung Oh.

“[Oh] has an expansive experience of web developing and scripting, so we decided to bring him on and kind of revamp the site, so it can be used for multiple schools,” Lau said.

According to Lau, the summer of 2013 was the first year they launched to 17 schools, as well as offered different services such as class forums and collaborative notes. However, the site’s main purpose is for students to see who is in their classes, according to senior David Chengazcherril, who was involved in marketing for Wikiroster.

“[Wikiroster has] functionalities that include posting on a forum, taking collaborative notes, posting the homework, so it does have that appeal, but I think the way we are really helping people is by giving them the freedom to manipulate their schedule,” Chengazcherril said. “You can manipulate your classes, be in classes with your friends, be in classes with the teachers that you like. You have more of a freedom.”

According to junior Jordan Arrigo the website is also user-friendly and helpful.

“My experience using Wikiroster was overall a pretty good one,” Arrigo said. “I really liked how easy it was to use and that you could find your classes easily.”

However, not all South students feel the same way. According to senior Peter Roberson, not enough students from South use Wikiroster for it to be useful.

“I only find one person in each of my classes because not everybody [is] signed up [on Wikiroster],” Roberson said.

However Lau explained that he’s doing his part to help users understand how to use the website, as well as monitoring the website’s activity to keep the website clean of academic dishonesty and inappropriate content. He feels it is a helpful resource for students. Arrigo agrees, adding that the only thing she disliked about Wikiroster was the lack of students at South using it.

“I know [it is] a little unrealistic, but I think everyone would benefit from it and find it useful,” Arrigo said.