I think it should - I sent a request for nickname change to @Cap'n Refsmmat on October 24th 2025 and the message wasn't even read. It seems the admins show up less frequently here than RIchard Dawkins does in Vatican.

My suggestion is for either @swansont, @CharonY or @Phi for All to be appointed as an admin - they're online on a regular basis and are well versed in the affairs and ongoings of the forum.

Edited Thursday at 09:14 PM2 days by Otto Kretschmer

I have to decline. Dealing with the board software is not in my wheelhouse, and my long COVID issues are a huge impediment in this old dog learning new tricks

38 minutes ago, swansont said:

I have to decline. Dealing with the board software is not in my wheelhouse, and my long COVID issues are a huge impediment in this old dog learning new tricks

Thanks for your reply. I forgot the forum is self hosted and the admins do more thdn just manage the content.

8 hours ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

I sent a request for nickname change to @Cap'n Refsmmat

I actually have that same issue - wanted to change my display name, but was unable to contact admin (my message wasn’t read).

Any suggestions?

On 8/7/2026 at 7:18 AM, Markus Hanke said:

I actually have that same issue - wanted to change my display name, but was unable to contact admin (my message wasn’t read).

Any suggestions?

Maybe we should ask just politely?

Yeah, bc if there’s one single word that best describes Markus it’s clearly “impolite.” 🙄

4 minutes ago, iNow said:

Yeah, bc if there’s one single word that best describes Markus it’s clearly “impolite.” 🙄

LOL

23 minutes ago, iNow said:

Yeah, bc if there’s one single word that best describes Markus it’s clearly “impolite.” 🙄

😂 Right but if enough folks support a formal petition to the administration/moderation, it'll be more likely to fulfill our wish. 🤔

Since I've been a member the active membership seems to have shrunk.

Perhaps if we, the members, posted some more attractive subject matter that trend would reverse and the admins would also be more active as they are playing a different part from ordinary members.

There is a commercial imperative underlying and supporting SF.

1 hour ago, studiot said:

Since I've been a member the active membership seems to have shrunk.

Perhaps if we, the members, posted some more attractive subject matter that trend would reverse and the admins would also be more active as they are playing a different part from ordinary members.

There is a commercial imperative underlying and supporting SF.

Forums as a whole lost a lot of membership to Reddit, places like r/Science, r/AskScience, r/Skeptic and subs for individual disciplines like r/math, r/Physics, r/Chemistry and others fulfill the role forums did in the 2000s and early 2010s. I don't think the trend can be reversed.

1 hour ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

Forums as a whole lost a lot of membership to Reddit, places like r/Science, r/AskScience, r/Skeptic and subs for individual disciplines like r/math, r/Physics, r/Chemistry and others fulfill the role forums did in the 2000s and early 2010s. I don't think the trend can be reversed.

OTOH I dislike big sites, since it reduces the chance to contribute. I’m not a fan of posts that cover the same ground that previous answers have covered. Also ones with poor moderation where shouting can be used in place of reasoned discussion, and there’s little to deter that behavior.

4 minutes ago, swansont said:

OTOH I dislike big sites, since it reduces the chance to contribute. I’m not a fan of posts that cover the same ground that previous answers have covered. Also ones with poor moderation where shouting can be used in place of reasoned discussion, and there’s little to deter that behavior.

IIRC since 2018, Google has been prioritizing Reddit and Quora in the search results - when someone asks a basic question like "how does natural selection work?", they get redirected to Reddit as the first place after Wikipedia. People may not even be getting SFN in search results unless they specifically google "science forum" - which many Gen Z/Gen A people likely don't do since they don't use forums (my 13 y.o nephew doesn't even have a computer, 90% of his interactions on the web are Youtube, TikTok and streaming services which he accesses via an Xbox app). Add AI intercepting the basic queries even from Wiki/Reddit and the old forums' survival loop (good thread → Google traffic → new members) is broken for generic questions. It still works for long-tail niche queries, but that's not a lot of traffic and even that is slowly being taken over by AI.

Continued - I think it could be possible for SFN to talk to some science Youtubers or subreddits and suggest they drop a link to SFN. Both Reddit and Youtube are poorly suited for long form discussions unlike forums and 2 mods with PhDs is somewhat of a sales pitch.

Edited 3 hours ago3 hr by Otto Kretschmer

2 hours ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

Forums as a whole lost a lot of membership to Reddit, places like r/Science, r/AskScience, r/Skeptic and subs for individual disciplines like r/math, r/Physics, r/Chemistry and others fulfill the role forums did in the 2000s and early 2010s. I don't think the trend can be reversed.

Also, even those spaces seem to have declined. Much of reddit is dominated by engagement bait, often bot-driven. Likewise, I found that most of these subs have declined markedly in quality (at least those that were decent to begin with). Some are outright cesspools of misinformation.

32 minutes ago, swansont said:

OTOH I dislike big sites, since it reduces the chance to contribute. I’m not a fan of posts that cover the same ground that previous answers have covered. Also ones with poor moderation where shouting can be used in place of reasoned discussion, and there’s little to deter that behavior.

Also, even without shouting, quite frequently there is poor reasoning and I have seen how misconceptions at some point become consensus.

21 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

which many Gen Z/Gen A people likely don't do since they don't use forums (my 13 y.o nephew doesn't even have a computer, 90% of his interactions on the web are Youtube, TikTok and streaming services which he accesses via an Xbox app)..

Yepp, searches in TikTok are quite common, apparently. Rather depressingly, that is what students confirm they are doing nowadays. The argument was that google is for old folks. Though google is getting worse, anyway. Also wikipedia is too long to read, according to many.