I tried entering some special characters (arrows) as a tag in http://mmdb-dev.ncsa.uiuc.edu:8080/mmdb/#dataset?id=tag:medici@uiuc.edu,2009:img_WThgvvs2dfuUsqHQ264TOg

The special characters are not displayed in the tag, but are replaced by question marks.

The special characters DO show up if you put them in the comment area.

This is not important now, but I thought I would note it nonetheless.