Unicode in handles

Software NodeBB
1

I'm assuming Unicode in handles is not allowed? At least by Mastodon.

This user is not able to have their content federated because the username is all Hebrew (I think?) characters!

2 Likes
2

Hi @julian,
as long as nobody cares about the according standards, the #fediverse will be a brittle nerd niche.

The according standard is IMO https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7565.html#:~:text=userpart ( #RFC7033 and #RFC7565 ) referring to https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7564#section-4.2.1.

What you find in the wild, however, is a different story as thee is no agreed upon #validator service nowhere.

1 Like
3

Hi, hello everyone. I'm sorry to hear that I can't be followed because of my username characters. Does this mean that I can't be followed here on the forum or is it something else?
Also, should I change my username to English characters?

4

@ืœืืฆื™ don't worry about it! You shouldn't have to alter your username just to suit our latin-character world ๐Ÿ˜

1 Like
5

Huh. My Lemmy mobile client has the handle and host inverted. It doesn't look like this in the default web UI, though.

Also, my post from Lemmy hasn't landed here yet.

image.png

6

For what itโ€™s worth, Iโ€™m reading this thread from Lemmy and can see this comment of yours and access your profile, so in principle there isnโ€™t anything wrong with your username.

1 Like
7

Hi @kichae,
fun with RTL. How is it supposed to be?

8

@mro@digitalcourage.social the order of the Hebrew characters is correct, although I believe it should be wrapped in <bdi> tags so the rest of the line isn't affected ๐Ÿ™‚

1 Like
9

I'm curious about how the forum https://mitmachim.top/, which operates entirely in Hebrew, deals with the issue of Unicode usernames. Does this issue even exist there? Also, it's worth noting that Mitmachim Top is based on NodeBB.

10

@ืœืืฆื™ the usernames work fine locally (that is, on the site itself). It's when interoperating with other sites not running NodeBB where there are issues, it seems ๐Ÿ™‚

1 Like
11

The ActivityPub and WebFinger spec does mention that Mastodon has some strict requirements there. Only alphanumeric characters, underscores, dashes, and dots.