fixes #5869 - permit accents in user names on Ruby 1.8
(cherry picked from commit 1678e0e1953fa8ad6e23fc1bf08b7d3428e0e1c6)
fixes #5869 - permit accents in user names on Ruby 1.8
(cherry picked from commit 1678e0e1953fa8ad6e23fc1bf08b7d3428e0e1c6)