Hi there, I'm always connected to efnet. As you know efnet does not use nickserv. There is a dude who has stolen my nick (Sparks). However, it would be cool if we can use more symbols like '*' because my real nick is *Sparks*.

Regards
*Sparks*

The characters that can be used in a nickname are determined by the IRC server and it's software, so you'd have to talk to them about that. However, using '*' in a nickname would be a very bad thing for mIRC at least (and probably other clients too) since it's used as a wildcard. Suddenly someone using a script which utilises something like $ial($nick) would break because $ial() would think that you were using a wildcard instead of referring to a specific nick. I doubt EFnet or any other network are going to change the characters allowed simply so people can make their nicks more 'decorative'. Which, when all's said and done, is probably a good thing.

It's part of the territory, so to say, that on networks without services there is no such thing as a stolen nickname. Only networks with services allow you to own a nickname so in reality your nickname is not stolen. I would concede that if someone is deliberately stopping someone else from using a name they are known by simply because they are able to is pretty stupid but there is nothing that can be done about it. I agree with starbucks about the * issue too. There are times when people carry the non-alpha yarn a bit far in nicknames. Remember that some (alot) of people use java applets and IRC programmes that do not support nick completion the way mIRC does and inclusion of an array of non-alpha chars just makes names harder for people to write.