Just out of curiosity, is your life so dull that you’ve got nothing better to do with your time than sit and stare at a blank screen when the board is down and wait? If so, get out of the house, get a hobby, and shut the hell up!
I like the bit where Iteki discusses how we’re the ones that make the board, because that’s true. He/she makes a good point with that. Because we’re responsible for the content of the board, we have the right to complain about it. But the “it’s free” argument is still viable, because you have to deal with what you’ve got. If you’ve found other boards that work faster and are just as good and the slow progress of this board upsets you so, then leave. Focus on your other boards and quit comparing. But, if you keep coming back for the content, well then, look at it as an even trade. You’re getting a higher quality of info here, so deal with the little difficulties of having to wait a few minutes or repost when the system acts funny.
And, as for the statement :“Surely this would not be accepted as a counter-argument to any other debate topics posted on the board? What is basically being said is “Shut up and stop complaining”. The same could be said to anyone who rants or indeed complains of legislative problems or whatever.”
Have you even been reading the boards? The first five to ten posts of virtually any thread in the Pitt are “Shut up and stop complaining” or something equally offensive. It’s the way of the board, oh well, it’s part of what makes it fun.
As the person who started this whole thing off, I’d just like to say, thanks to those who agreed with my post, and thanks to those who disagreed with it. Maybe the SDMB will decide to make the board a little bit faster, or maybe they won’t. Whatever they decide, it’s no skin off my nose. I truly enjoy all the posts and responses that I read here (in all forums, not just the pit). Please don’t take my BBQ rant in the wrong way. Just take it in the spirit of, “shit could be a little faster around here, and that would make me and a hell of a lot of fellow posters happier each time that they check into the SDMB, but if it don’t get any faster, we will all still enjoy the incomparable posters and responders that make up this board and make it as fine as it is”.
And, a special thanks to Iteki, who posted the following, and made me feel quite special, until I realized that his comments were by no means limited to me (as you will of course realize, if you read his entire post):
In the larger perspective, the board gains its entire value from notcynical!!!
hmmm… I can see this is a touchy subject… so I’ll try to put this really lightly and maybe just be a little helpful in the process…
1- download mozilla 1.2b from http://mozilla.org/releases/
2- install said browser
3- open said browser
4- setup tabbed browsing
5- open 3 or 4 tabs pointed at different forums/threads that you like
6- while others are lagging behind loading, read a different forum/thread
this allows you to put the lag into the background, you don’t see it, you don’t get frustrated… hopefully this will atleast minimize your suffering.
----non geeks can stop reading----
now for a technological solution… first, I am not a tax attourney, I am a computer geek… I know I’m not the only computer geek on the board, and I know I’m not the only person with extra hardware (either full systems or just bits and pieces)… if the tax ramifications wouldn’t be too horrible for the Reader, perhaps all of us that have extra stuff could donate it (or the Reader could offer a low cost “computer part recycling service”, say 1$ plus shipping… once again, not a tax lawyer)… then some of my fellow linux wonks from the board that live nearer to chicago (assuming the physical boxes aren’t at a co-lo in sweden, or where-ever) could donate the time to piece a number of boxes into a beowulf cluster to serve as a backside database cluster server to take the load off the webservers…
ok… I’m a dork. (but I think the idea of a “low cost computer part recycling service” that reuses the bits and pieces is kinda cool… and might get arround the donation taxes, but IANAL)
notcynical, bobo, I know your intentions are good, but you should really consider getting acquainted with ATMB and the discussions that arise there every couple of months or so about what we can all do to trick the Reader into taking our money and getting a new server. DeniseV linked to the most recent one, and I’m pretty sure that thread contains links to older versions that all contained pretty much exactly the same content.