Thanks. I wasn't sure what to search for regarding this problem.

My impression now is that this problem should be easy to fix for the IT guys behind the scenes, if they wanted to fix it.

Hopefully the word can be passed upward that this problem should be easy to fix. Easy is relative, of course. By easy I mean it would take the right person less than half a day to resolve it completely, without requiring anyone to change their usernames. If the problem spans multiple sites, then it seems like this should be a priority.

At the very least, it would be super easy to TELL PEOPLE when they are signing up that they should not use punctuation in their username (if that can't easily be disabled, but I think it can in the configuration for this type of forum software) if they ever want people to be able to send them a private message.

It would also be quite easy to notify all users who have affected usernames. I bet some of them have been around for a long time and have no idea about the problem.