Removal of digits/punctuation marks in usernames to prevent impersonations

[RAP D3VIL]

Recommending something similar to social media sites, such as instagram ; which does not permit users to end their usernames to end with punctuation marks such as , ; ' etc. I'd suggest removing it from the start/end of usernames, but leave the middle. (i.e RAP.D3VIL is fine, but RAP D3VIL. is not). This not only prevents and creates a safer trading environment and stops impersonation scammers (which I have personally been approached by, but never been successfully scammed by). This then unclogs the Scammer's Grave section and makes it easier for staff to deal with that section, as impersonation scams are one of the most typically posted threads, ultimately allowing staff to deal with genuine threats and disputes, and best of all, leads to a safer environment in the marketplace due to the elimination of impersonations. Not sure if such a system is in place already, but just a thought.

Feel free to discuss below, but gonna tag major staff members.
@Flengo @RespectNF @Time @niggo @Dave84311 @arunforce

[[MPGH]Flengo]

We discussed a similar idea to this recently to prevent impersonations, but not sure about completely disallowing all special characters at the end of someones name. Up to Dave to decide on that one.

[[MPGH]Time]

IM was pretty much created to stop impersonation, all users have to do is click the profile icon next to their name and verify if its genuine, can't make it much more easier than that tbh.

[RAP D3VIL]

IM was pretty much created to stop impersonation, all users have to do is click the profile icon next to their name and verify if its genuine, can't make it much more easier than that tbh.

Definitely agree, however it still results in attempts to scam and impersonate users. Having a look at the scammer's grave, about half are impersonation reports. The only way to stop the scammer's grave being clogged up by it, is to completely stop impersonations, as scammers will still try regardless of whether people will recognise it or not, and the only way to clear up the scammer's section is remove a scammer's ability to impersonate, which is probably done by removal of small special characters at the end of names. New users might not be completely aware of IM safety features such as the link tp profile either.

[[MPGH]Psychotic]

The people being scammed are failing to confirm who they are speaking with. Like Time said, the implementation of IM was a way to combat impersonation scams as the IM account is, quite literally, one's MPGH account so confirming you're speaking with the right one is no more than a few clicks.

While I agree that removing punctuation marks like the tilda from accepted characters may hurt the scammer's efforts, these scams shouldn't be happening in the first place.