In Hubzilla, I was able to follow this user by pasting this URL into the "Add Connection" box:

#^https://community.nodebb.org/user/%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%A6%D7%99

I copied the URL in the browser for that user's profile (which contained the Hebrew characters). When I pasted it, it converted it to UTF-8 text (seen above).

Hubzilla was able to find the user based on that UTF-8 URL. So it is possible to follow such an account, at least with Hubzilla, via the UTF-8 URL.

It could not find %D7%9C%D7%90%D7%A6%D7%99@community.nodebb.org though, probably because NodeBB is not expecting the UTF-8 version of the username.

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.

We accept punycode usernames and render appropriately; or pass through UTF-8 usernames. The biggest issue is autocomplete; so we provided that using  aliases/petnames for connections. Probably will have issues on some platforms.

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?

[לאצי](https://community.nodebb.org/user/%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%A6%D7%99) don't worry about it! You shouldn't have to alter your username just to suit our latin-character world

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. 

For what it's worth, I'm reading this thread from Lemmy and can see this comment of yours and access your profile, so in principle there isn't anything wrong with your username.

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

[mro@digitalcourage.social](https://community.nodebb.org/user/mro%40digitalcourage.social) the order of the Hebrew characters is correct, although I believe it should be wrapped in `` tags so the rest of the line isn't affected

@לאצי I agree with @julian, you shouldn't don't have to change your username. It's just a technical hurdle to jump over.

Since I can follow you on Hubzilla (via a specific URL), I don't think it is an issue with ActivityPub or WebFinger. I'm sure there is some solution that would allow other platforms to follow your account.

@julian I just reported the issue over on the @Hubzilla Support Forum and created an issue in our repository.

#^https://hubzilla.org/channel/adminsforum?mid=7296e345-0ba9-51f9-b376-8e29368f3a07

Note: To prevent spam, you must be following adminsforum@hubzilla.org to participate in the Hubzilla Support Forum.

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.

[לאצי](https://community.nodebb.org/user/%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%A6%D7%99) 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