The goal description area of the system is character sensitive adding certain characters may prevent you from being able to add goals.
Double hyphen (--) and greater than and less than (<>) are not supported. The accepted characters to be used in Goals description are:
: _!@#$%^&*()-+=,.;?:
To be able to use ( -- and <> ) symbols in the description:
Create a file with the detailed description, and attach it to the Goal after you create it.
Create the goal without a description, then click the CheckIn button and add the description there.