Registration failing? What's going on with the sign-up process?

A friend of mine has been trying to set up an ACCOUNT on this fantastic forum, but he keeps running into issues.

Here’s the situation:
He picked out his username
Entered his brand new Gmail address

But the forum keeps throwing this error message at him:
The username is either already taken or it doesn't follow the administrator's guidelines...

I should mention that he even tried using some totally random handles like User123
(basically unique names that there's no way could be taken already)
On top of that, I’m a bit confused—what exactly are these administrator rules we're supposed to follow?
And is there a specific spot on the site where he can check if a username is actually available?
What seems to be the issue here, and how can we get this sorted out??

Thanks in advance, and I'm looking forward to a quick response.

He just needs to get his activation through, so let's all just be patient for a little bit...

He probably just ran into some taken handles, or maybe he tried using something the admins flagged, which would lock him out. He should probably just keep cycling through options, or else wait for one of the mods to reach out—maybe send a quick Gmail to Desiree or that guy from the IMF. 🙂

How long am I supposed to wait for my registration to clear? It's been 4 hours and still nothing in my Gmail.

Maria Barrett47 said:How long am I supposed to wait for my registration to go through? It’s been four hours and there's still nothing in my Gmail.

If it doesn't land in your inbox within the first ten or fifteen minutes, it likely isn't coming at all. It's much like trying to catch a signal in a dead zone; you might have better luck avoiding providers like Hotmail or Gmail entirely and sticking with your Comcast address if they provide one.🙂

I’m trying to type everything in exactly the same way—new Gmail address, everything—but I keep getting hit with this error message: "You have entered an invalid birthday." It’s like... what do they want from me? I can't even finish signing up because everything just hits a wall right there.