Username restrictions

Do you have a PCRE in place for usernames, restricting them to certain characters (i.e. only letters and numbers allowed) or a character-limit for the length of the username?

What prompted you to implement these restrictions?

 

I think if my name was Kevin, that (*/=/-*+*+/+ke&^^vin) would be my username of choice.

 

We dont have restrictions at CF, but occasionally we ask members to change thier name (tho usually this is because its unsuitable, not cause of strange chars).

vb.org has a very old custom check, that tbh is prob obsolete now since vb has the prce facility.

 

I also allow spaces and underscores, as many of my members prefer names with "the" something afterwards.

 

I couldn't agree more, Kevin - that drives me insane. It's something that the younger members tend to do (i.e. an excellent example of this would be the weird profile name styling that MySpace users sometimes use).

 

I don't restrict them at all, but those kinds of usernames do get to me.

 

I find them to be frustrating, particularly when they consume the width of the "Who's Online?" box.

 

ours are letters and numbers

and also your not allowed to use swear words or names like mod or admin (causes confusion)

 

I recently stopped allowing things like these in usernames

.com .org .net @

 

I only restrict names and titles that would impersonate staff or other members. Such as using the [you] tag as your username.

 

yeah, links as usernames arent a good idea, and possibly are spammers, and i had no idea you could use [you] as a username, omg that would confuse everyone, it confuses people enough in posts....like when an admin of a forum i am on first added the bbcode, and the first post was "did you hear about what [you] did?????" and it made everyone panic!

 

Yeah, things like the [you] tag are a string that gets replaced by the username of whose reading, not a real BB code, meaning they often take effect outside of areas on a forum where BB code is enabled.

 

Huh?

If someone signed up on a vb forum with the username [you] that would actually work?

 

You mean would it show the person viewing's name or would they be allowed to register? For at least one modification, it would work.

 

yes i have setup restriction i dont allow special characters or numbers in the usernames, this was primarily done to discourage spammers. historical trends showed us that spam registrations usually have numbers of special characters in their usernames, post this change the number of spam regisrtations have dropped down to zero now for the last 3 months, prior to this it was close to 20-30 a month.

 

but would the person who made that name see just [you] or someone elses name?

imagine registering on a forum under the name "[you] smells"

 

Whoever sees a name with [you] in it would see their own name.