It’s a thread quartet, which is similar to a string quartet.
No, you pin the tail on the DONKEY.
That’s for an Ass Teller Machine.
The last few times I have been here its been fast and good… Im hopefull that the host finally fixed the problem for them 
(As its nice and fast as should be)
I like this site alot!!
Things do seem different. I’ve just posted in IMHO and, for the first time in months, I got the old “wait 60 seconds” message, and then a few of the timeouts we’ve been experiencing in recent weeks. As I’ve said a couple of times in another thread, I just let the board do its thing, and the post finally got through without a duplicate.
None of the bastardly issues for me in the last 24-36 hours. Yay!!
It feels like almost a week since I’ve encountered significant problems. The rare, occasional 502/504 – which never used to happen, of course – but it’s been much better for me in general. If it was a D-, for the past week it’s been more like a B+. Perfectly tolerable in comparison to what it was.
There is no doubt it has vastly improved this week.
This thread shows that at least the board members have not lost their sense of humor–even in these straitened times.
We all must stick together right??
We do love this site and all…
A minor glitch earlier this AM, then just a couple minutes ago a hoard of 50x errors, slow response, etc.
Apparently laughter IS the best medicine.
We are still bumping along with our stinky old board.
I did ask for an update this week and was told this are “Progressing. Slowly.” Which I figured, all things considered.
No ETA yet. But soon as I know something useful, you will too.
In the meantime … let’s keep on keeping on as best we can.
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Guys, please, you should fix it ASAP The issues have become tiresome and really annoying. I can also support you financially. I am no rich but I think a significant number of people, including me, can donate to keep Straightdope forum up and working.
I finally had to break down and replace my iPad last week. I’d had it repaired several times over the years, mostly charge port issues. But it also had problems with color rendition and screen burn in and a bunch of other stuff.
I saw them on sale in Amazon last week. I hadn’t priced them in a while and the prices had gone way down in the last several years.
To my pleasant surprise, the SDMB works WAY better on my new device. I’ve gotten a few errors, but nothing like before, when it would stall on 9 out of 10 attempts. So (for what it’s worth) for me, it appears as if the issues were being exacerbated by my device.
Enjoy your new iPad, but be aware that the system has been performing relatively well for approximately the past week, so that’s probably what you’re seeing. I think we’ve pretty much established that the problem is on the server side and due to very ancient software, as explained in the current sticky note, and that all client types experience the problem when it’s occurring. I have a fast desktop computer and 300 Mbps internet connection and there have been many times when long delays and timeouts have made the system virtually unusable.
Well, I just got another server error.
Another in the “Well, of course it did.” zone.
Everything was running smoothly this afternoon until I clicked on this thread. Big … pause.
ETA: And than a timeout error when trying to post it. Meta.
As I’ve said before (and am about to say again) “fixing it” is not an overnight thing.
As soon as I have something worthwhile to pass on to you and we can get on to The Next Big Thing, we will.
In the meantime, we’re having to put up with a less than good situation and I apologize for that. At the present time, that’s all I can do.
There may well come a time when your financial resources will be called upon. But that day is not yet here. More on that when we get there as well.
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Just please don’t do what a certain other forum devoted to fact-finding and such did about a year ago (or was it two?) and announce, quite abruptly, “the forum will be closing very soon, subscribe to our mailing list for updates on what comes next” and then, without bothering to give a definite date for closure or even so much as a 24-hour heads up so people can at least agree on maybe an alternative forum in the meantime, proceed to shut down the forum.
Because you may find that, when you do finally move onto “what comes next,” if that involves money (and maybe even if it doesn’t) people will be less inclined to get on board.
Speaking for myself, a one-time donation to get the move done and do the first year of support would be preferred than a yearly membership.
I’m sure others have different opinions, but if we get enough of the one-timers and the yearlys, hopefully we can get the financial part covered.
We are still here, still in business.
I have not heard of any plans to close. I don’t think it’s going to come to that, though there might be a bit of downtime when we do switch over to the new system.
Don’t borrow trouble, okay?
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Yes, the board seems to be working much better at present. And somebody else posted above that the behavior seems to by cyclic. So the idea that it is “server side and due to very ancient software” seems to be an even less likely to be a complete explanation. Because the idea that the board is getting less use due to COVID0-19 seem unlikely.
I understand the simple idea: “It is not at your end. There is nothing you can do to fix it. It is a server-side problem”
The nature of that server side problem could be:
A hosting problem with the virtual server.
A problem with the advertising provider.
A problem with web crawlers.
…as well as less likely options like
A denial of service attack.
Funding throttling by the funding organization.
Sexy-fingered configuration errors.
“Old Software” could play into any of these, particularly hosting problems, but it’s not a complete explanation: it just doesn’t match the observed behavior.