When I posted as guest, I could use the exclamation point ! in my username "N! Xau".
I registered as member and once I tried to enter ! I got a warning saying something like "you can't use that character in the username, but you may change the displayed name after".
So i set both username and displayed name as "Nxau", but now it doesn't let me add that little ! in the middle...

thanks
N! Xau

You have to use 2 names because of the following:

You have a file on the server which is called as your username. Because it's also a filename it means no special characters.

The Display name is the name which is shown. It can have Spaces and a lot of other characters.

You need the username only to login.


So your problem is you can't add a "!"? Try it only in Displayed name. You can't change the username. Just ignore it.

No Andy, the problem is that it doesnt accept a ! EVEN in the displayed name field.
BTW you cannot change the user name from the Profile page.

That is strange. If the display name isn't actually a file, it should be able to use any characters. Andi? :???:

Should be. I could change the name manually, but maybe that's not very safe. I guess they have their reasons. Maybe because of some control-characters.

It doesn't matter, Andi.
"They", who?

Presumably the programmers of Yabb forums.

Yes.