Why are invisible spaces against the rules?

Question

Hi PM! I have this question for you. I think many other users are also curious to this as well.

Your name change rules are very understandable, however, the invincible character one throws me off. Is there a certain reason why this is frowned upon? Would it cause technical difficulties? Or is it just to make general moderation easier, along with preventing impersonation?

In the past, I have used invisible characters and advised others to use them as a workaround for taken usernames. However, since I’m staff now, I believe I have a responsibility to help follow and enforce your rules, which is why I would appreciate having a greater understanding as to why.

Thus, I ask you, why is this a rule? Is there any circumstances where it could be allowed (E.g., usernames taken by inactive user?)

Thanks so much for your time!

Comments

I think it's just to discourage people from using names that other people already have. It's probably not a big issue for inactive users, but it could easily be used to impersonate active users.

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Yeah, I've read about how HT, Felix and cranpper all changed their name to Hellfire Taco once and this one user was extremely pissed off cause he couldn't recognise who the real Hellfire Taco was.

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Wait did we do that
I always forget my best jokes :(((

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Haha I'm breaking the rules

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Felix will be banned now

Answer 1

As HT said, it’s to prevent someone impersonating another user, especially a mod/editor.

Using it for an inactive account that has no posts probably won’t hurt, but you could just use some other symbols instead, e.g. ~Username~