# Straight Dope Server(s) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 11, 2006, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979 "2006-07-11T05:20:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/21 "2006-07-11T17:37:50Z")
> [@wolf\_meister](#): > > I _thought_ when the “Powers That Be” switched to paid memberships and running Google ads, everything would improve. :mad: > > What’s next in line for increasing revenue? Will we have Esteban guitar infomercials at the bottom of the screen? :mad: :mad: Well, aside from **TubaDiva** ’s hints about new features that didn’t pan out, we were never promised better service in exchange for paying for it. Except that I suspect a substantial number of people dropped, and except for a brief period, even that didn’t help matters any. I’m not sure what’s going on, but at tens of thousands of dollars revenue per year, it would be nice if they would be decent enough to buy something new at some point, given that pay-to-post has been in place for over two years and they’ve obviously made at least some money in that time. I’m still confused over why a board that’s not all that big compared to many out there seems to be so incredibly difficult to run. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/22 "2006-07-11T17:44:10Z")
> [@wolf\_meister](#): > > uckily, it’s a problem that will be resolved soon (2003 version) > > Luckily, it’s a problem that will be resolved soon (2004 version) > > Luckily, it’s a problem that will be resolved soon (2005 version) > > Luckily, it’s a problem that will be resolved soon (2006 version) Man, it’s simply amazing that I’ve missed every one of these promises over the past seven years. I sure am unobservant! No problem, I’m sure you’ll come along and post links to all of the staff’s promises to this effect, right? And yes, the board’s performance is much better these days. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/23 "2006-07-11T18:13:53Z")
> [@Troy McClure SF](#): > > And yes, the board’s performance is much better these days. I don’t know what it was like in '99, but it was certainly better for me than it is now. My usual maneuver now is to just click fifteen or twenty links to open in tabs and go make a cup of coffee or grab a smoke. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/24 "2006-07-11T18:15:08Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > I don’t know what it was like in '99, but it was certainly better for me than it is now. My usual maneuver now is to just click fifteen or twenty links to open in tabs and go make a cup of coffee or grab a smoke. Certainly better for me _when I joined back in '03_ than it is now. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/25 "2006-07-11T18:46:06Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > Actually, I’d say the board speed has improved hugely during the time I’ve been a member. The fact that we haven’t had one of these threads for at least, what, six months or so speaks volumes. Back when I was a young Doper, it took minutes to load a thread. We’d regularly compose in Word or Wordpad, knowing that the chance was good as even that the hamsters would eat your post - there is a reason we call them hamsters and not something even a mite bit speedier. I think a lot of us got hooked on the Dope when it was so slow you could surf and still get work done. We also walked uphill to school both ways…in the snow…barefoot. (We didn’t, but it did used to be a lot worse around here.) ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/26 "2006-07-11T22:03:02Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > The underlying problem is that most websites that are the gathering place for a community of some sort - well, they really want to fill that role. But the Chicago Reader, which owns this message board, apparently didn’t expect or intend for this MB to become the focal point for an online community, nor are they that interested in playing host to such a community. So we get what they’re willing to give us in the way of servers and stuff. > > It’s been a lot worse in the past, so when things load slowly, I just shrug my shoulders and go do something else for awhile. I will add to this only that it has been much, much worse in the past. I remember (as I bet you do) the days of a solid hour or two each day when you just could not get a thread to load, the demand was that big. ---
**Author:** ![purpler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/cab0a1/32.png) [@purpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purpler)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/27 "2006-07-12T00:18:06Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > I’ve been roving the boards for the last 15 minutes without a problem. Then, I came upon this thread, and like magic, it slowed to a crawl. Ah, the internet, what a wonderful, shiny thing!!! I’ve also been reading the boards all day with few or no problems. First time i clicked the link to this thread, i got the “timed out” error message and had to retry. The SDMB servers have a well-developed sense of irony. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/28 "2006-07-12T00:35:31Z")
I’ve said it before so I’ll say it again: It’s vBulletin. I was on another forum that ran the same software and had the same problems. The problem seems to be the search function. When it’s in use it sucks up CPU time like a castaway sucks up fresh water after a week adrift. When the search has completed, performance returns to normal. Once said forum converted everything over to Invision, the problem went away. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/29 "2006-07-12T03:33:37Z")
> [@Troy McClure SF](#): > > Man, it’s simply amazing that I’ve missed every one of these promises over the past seven years. I sure am unobservant! No problem, I’m sure you’ll come along and post links to all of the staff’s promises to this effect, right? > > And yes, the board’s performance is much better these days. Not to put words in anyone’s mouth, but: In [2001](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=62342&highlight=slow): > [@TubaDiva](#): > > Jerry the Tech God tells me at times the server thrashes around wildly. That is when things really get slow. > > Why does this happen? Because we’re running at maximum capacity nearly all the time and sometimes it’s just too much. > > What are we doing about it? Jerry’s trying to smooth things out so we have less server strain and more useful activity, but outside of a little bit of tweaking, that’s all we’re getting. > > It’s not that Jerry doesn’t care or the Reader doesn’t give a damn, but we are still not making them any money and they are not inclined to throw more money our way for no return on their investment. > > They’re not even willing to spring for what it what take for a software upgrade – there’s just no money in the budget for the Reader to take a tech and put them to work fixing all the bugs and maintaining the system. (The last time they did this we had to have full time tech help for quite a long time, at the Reader’s expense.) > > Again, it’s not that they don’t care, it’s that the Reader IS a business and needs to make a profit. We’re not a profit making concern yet. > > As to why they turned down the Teeming’s fund raising drive, while all appreciate the thought, legally they couldn’t accept such a gift. > > Please try to make the best of what we have, 'cause it is all we have. In [2002](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=115848&highlight=boards+slow): > [@TubaDiva](#): > > You can also try to do some basic things to enhance your SDMB experience, such as clearing out temporary internet caches, removing tmp and chk files from your system, etc. Check over all your settings, including modem strings and browser preferences, that can also make a difference. Try to get your system to run at peak performance before you tackle the SDMB. > > If you are on AOL, be advised that the notorious “resource leak” will drain away your RAM and not release it until you do a total reboot of your system, this will slow you down until the system crashes if you disregard it. Also the internal AOL browser is often slow or flat refuses to load pages; try external IE or Netscape or one of the alternate browsers and see if that doesn’t change things for you. > > What else can you do? If you have a truly important post, compose it in an email or word processor window and paste it in to the SDMB reply box; you’ll still have it if Something Bad Happens. In [2003](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=201463&highlight=slow): > [@TubaDiva](#): > > FYI, Mr. I Just Got Here and Know Nothing, we got a brand new server in November. > > Unfortunately we are a victim of our own success here; the demand for the board far outstrips whatever supply we might have available. > > Several months of being beaten like a rented mule 24/7 has not made the server operate better; in fact, I have alerted our tech support to the fact that we’re having problems. > > I do not know what, if anything, can be done to fix things. I cannot begin to tell you when a solution and/or a fix will be implemented. All I can do is report the situation and ask y’all to be patient. > > And some of you need to back off. WAY off. In [2004](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=289953&highlight=slow): > [@TubaDiva](#): > > A bit of history for the new guy, and everyone else too, I guess. Y’all wanna hear a story? > > (Get a drink, this is a long story. Heck, pack a lunch.) > > We’ve always been somewhat of an experiment for our corporate parent, The Chicago Reader. Their deal is putting out the weekly paper and that’s their main focus. They do have some ancillary offerings (now more than ever before!), but back when all this started, it was the weekly paper and some 900 phone lines and Cecil’s syndicated column, which they sold mostly to other alternative newspapers. We’re not talking The New York Times here, okay? > > That was the state of affairs until the Straight Dope went to cyberspace in 1996 on AOL. The Reader never imagined anyone would pay for online content until AOL came calling and paid nicely for the privilege for several years. > > When AOL abandoned all paid content (and started charging instead), the Reader decided they’d experiment a little more; they had a website that was just sitting, as they hadn’t decided exactly what their online presence was going to be, but everybody said you gotta have a website to make it in business, so they had one but were still figuring out what to do with it. And originally we were going to try it for like 90 days, with the full expectation that people would lose interest and that would be the end of it. > > To everyone’s everlasting surprise, 90 days later, it was bigger than ever. The Reader was amused . . . and we hung in there. > > They kept expecting we were gonna die off any day now . . . and we just kept ticking. Service was always kinda on the slow side – and worse when there was any sort of crowd online, but we weren’t charging any money and trying not to hit the Reader hard and were just glad to be here. Truth to tell, we kinda hoped they’d just forget about us and not think about the fact that we were using their resources and not contributing to the bottom line or even covering our expenses. > > It was more trouble that it was worth to figure out a way to charge money. The software we were using had no way of allowing for subscriptions or even donations. Besides, the IRS says you can’t donate to a corporation, so all the folks that wanted this place to be like PBS were really disappointed. Charging money was going to be a bookkeeping nightmare. We didn’t want to be more of pain in the patoot to the Reader than we already were, so we just kept hanging out and hoping for the best. It was a lot of flying under the radar. > > We were on their backup server, which was puny and slow, and the board was slower than mole-asses, that’s the truth. We used to say to people that complained about the slow service, “Well, if you’re that unhappy, we’ll refund your money, how’s that?” > > To their credit, our folks put up with the aggravation and stuck around. > > Got too big for the original board software we had, and tech found us some more. Still didn’t have a way to charge money, though. Got hacked a couple of times, and they could have killed us off at those times . . . but they didn’t. They redid the database and we kept on. The new board software was not perfect, but better than what we had used before. It was still slow but we were still in business, and we kept thinking, okay, we’ll get a new server and then we’ll fly! > > They finally upgraded to another server. They bought us a new one, yaay! We thought we’d have power to spare . . . we burned through it in less than 90 days. Back to being slow. It was too much demand for too little supply, but they were not about to buy us another server; dammit, they just bought us one! > > We upgraded software again. We optimized the server. It was better, but still crappy, especially at peak times. > > Finally, the software accommodated subscriptions and the Reader was ready to try a subscription basis; management figured it was time to see if all the folks that had offered to throw money at them for all these years really meant it. By that time, they had paid over 100K for the privilege of carrying this site and were well aware of it. The smart money was betting that as soon as we started charging, board traffic would drop to a trickle and then those that were left would have all the access they could eat. > > Once again, to their surprise, people signed up and traffic stayed about the same, and even rose a little. This site has been the little engine that could; it has just kept on keeping on through everything. > > By that time, demand for the SDMB was so heavy that the Reader could get nothing done online, including in-house usage and all the online offerings they had developed in the meantime. They throttled us down so that we weren’t hogging all the pipe . . . it still wasn’t enough. > > So a few months ago they shifted us to an outside host. We’re still not ramped up as high as maybe we could be, but experience has taught us that as far as this site is concerned, demand always rises to exceed supply. The Reader could go broke on this . . . but they’re not gonna go there. As always, what we got to work with is what we got. > > It’s still slow at times, but it’s better than it’s been in the past; with the move to the new server, the need to do backups was eliminated, so it’s all SD 24/7, another plus. Not as fast as some folks would like, but mostly everybody gets what they want without too much inconvenience most of the time. Of course, we’re always one slashdot mention away from being totally swamped, but that’s true of most everywhere. > > While the Reader is not directly involved in the day to day operations of the site, this site is their property and we do ultimately answer to them. The board is staffed by volunteers; the tech side is the same guys that do everything else at the Reader, inside and outside. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the tech guys over there also change lightbulbs and fix phones; it’s a small company and they keep every bit of it running. Oh, and they put out a paper every week, too; that’s still their main focus and where the bulk of their attention goes. We are way down on their “to-do” list and that is unlikely to change. > > If I can be allowed to say so, this is an exceptional community and I believe anyone that falls into it has an opportunity to hang with some of the greatest folks on the planet. And, as Cecil has already pointed out, a few dipsticks. But they’re okay too. Mostly. > > It’s still not without some problems. But it’s good, and some days, damn near perfect. And that’s close enough. As I write this, it’s close enough for yours truly and 4,291 of my fellow inmates. We all think we’re on to something special. Hope you do too. In [2005](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=314443&highlight=slow): > [@TubaDiva](#): > > In today’s cyberspace, anything on dialup is bound to be slow motion to begin with. > > This board is sometimes a problem, even for those with high-speed connections. Mostly it’s due to demand and supply; when performance bogs down, usually there’s a tremendous amount of call for the server to do things for a lot of people. The server times out, drops all the connections, and starts again. This does make for slow going. > > We do apologize. I can’t promise you an immediate fix for this problem, though it is being looked at. And finally, in [2006](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=353534&highlight=slow): > [@TubaDiva](#): > > “Why is this so slow?” has many potential answers, any or all of which may apply to a situation. > > Generally speaking you are at the mercy of internet traffic; if there’s slowdowns or bottlenecks between your computer and our server, that will be reflected in your wait time. Please see the Internet Traffic Report for more details on how this happens. > > The resources available to this board are finite. It does seem sometimes (especially at peak times, when everybody and his brother are calling for pages), it seems those resources are stretched beyond limits. This means that at peak times the board reacts to overdemand by thrashing around and resetting. The outcome from this is that some requests for pages go through lickety-split (on the good side of the reset, when there’s a lot of bandwidth available), some go through very slowly (at various points in the process, usually getting slower as the demand builds), and some don’t go through at all (got dropped by the server while it was resetting). > > There’s no way of predicting which of those scenarios will happen to you; it’s the luck of the draw. > > It can also be a local problem; what browser are you using? Some are more effective than others. I suspect most of our users these days swear by Opera or Firefox rather than IE or the other less-powered browsers, like the one built into AOL, which, to give the technical term, sucks scissors. Taking care to clear out your temp caches may also improve your experience. > > The board is huge – too large, really – and we are looking at ways to offload our archives so that they are accessible but not part of the everyday database. That should speed things up nicely. We’re also looking at ways to improve the server. All this is in process, and it’s happening slowly, but it is happening. All we can ask you to do in the meantime is be patient and bear with us. To summarize: **2001** :We’re trying, but we have no money to upgrade. **2002** :Fix your own machine. Get rid of AOL. Other than that, we got nothin’. **2003** :Well, we did just get a new server, but I guess it’s not helping as much as we thought. We can’t do anything else, so STFU. **2004** :blah blah blah the server … blah blah blah traffic … blah blah blah subscriptions … blah blah blah more traffic than we thought **2005** :Server capacity! We’re looking at it. **2006** :Finite resources! We’re trying to offload archives! We’re trying to improve server! Be patient! Five years of patient. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/30 "2006-07-12T03:36:17Z")
Well it definitely sucks at times. Which wouldn’t be so bad if we weren’t PAYING for it. How many simultaneous users are on these boards? Is the traffic on this message board so much higher than other popular (but fast) boards? ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/31 "2006-07-12T04:27:09Z")
I hate to give the admins ideas or anything, but this is the only board I know of that archives all posts. Most of them clear out threads older than a year or so. That makes the database much smaller, and I’d bet anything that it’s the database that’s the bottleneck. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/32 "2006-07-12T04:34:49Z")
> [@Rysto](#): > > I hate to give the admins ideas or anything, but this is the only board I know of that archives all posts. Most of them clear out threads older than a year or so. That makes the database much smaller, and I’d bet anything that it’s the database that’s the bottleneck. I think they’re trying to do that…take the older threads off this server and put them in an archived (viewable, but not postable) format. It’s been mentioned a few times and the archive is online now, I believe, but I don’t think it’s played up since there’s still work being done on it. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/33 "2006-07-12T13:00:11Z")
> [@iampunha](#): > > I will add to this only that it has been much, much worse in the past. I remember (as I bet you do) the days of a solid hour or two each day when you just could not get a thread to load, the demand was that big. I sure do remember; I think even in this discussion, I was blocking out just _how_ bad it used to be. And back then, the Dope was really the only place I wanted to be online. That’s changed considerably. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/34 "2006-07-12T15:12:54Z")
**Garfield 226** - Posting #29 A carload of kudos for that tremendous research !!! 🙂 In another posting you mentioned the SDMB folks were archiving threads: > [@](#): > > It’s been mentioned a few times and the archive is online now, I believe, but I don’t think it’s played up since there’s still work being done on it. So, maybe we’ll see TubaDiva posting something like this? 2009: Yes, we’ve _really_ been trying to build a thread archive but the work is much more time-consuming than we thought. So, the boards remain slow because of this as well as increased Internet traffic, hackers, increased solar activity, cosmic rays, impish demonic humanoids from the netherworld, … ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/35 "2006-07-12T16:47:13Z")
> [@Stealth Potato](#): > > I’ve noticed it come and go by the minute. One moment it’s doing fine, then suddenly every request gets timed out. Then a minute or two later, it’s working again. Mostly just a nuisance. > > Any special reason this is in the pit? Your profanity-to-paragraph ratio is very low. 😉 I figured this was the best place for my query since I’m [like this](http://youtube.com/watch?v=d9IzyKei_oA&search=smashing%20computer) whenever the SD forums decide to take a powder. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![XJETGIRLX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9fc29f/32.png) [@XJETGIRLX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XJETGIRLX)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/36 "2006-07-12T16:51:30Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > Actually, I’d say the board speed has improved hugely during the time I’ve been a member. The fact that we haven’t had one of these threads for at least, what, six months or so speaks volumes. Not in the pit, maybe, but there are frequent threads in ATMB and it’s a routine enough complaint/query that management has seen fit to put a sticky there addressing the issue. I’d say that speaks volumes too. ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/37 "2006-07-12T17:45:27Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > I sure do remember; I think even in this discussion, I was blocking out just _how_ bad it used to be. > > And back then, the Dope was really the only place I wanted to be online. That’s changed considerably. I used to spend eight hours a day in my school computer lab doing not a lot more than posting here. Sometimes it took more’n a little to get one post through. A lot of "page not found"s and timeouts and such. That was six years ago, and while performance is certainly better, I can’t help but wonder. (That second paragraph of yours, boy. Y’ain’t preaching to a heathen here:) Back in the day, there was e-mail, espn and this place. Now…) And, in perfect timing, I got a timeout trying to post this. But then, it’s the middle of the day in the US, so that’s hardly surprising. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/38 "2006-07-12T22:06:12Z")
**Garfield226** pretty much makes my point. You want to bitch about it being slow, fine, but don’t claim that TPTB promised a fix and then failed to come through. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/39 "2006-07-12T22:16:09Z")
> [@Troy McClure SF](#): > > **Garfield226** pretty much makes my point. You want to bitch about it being slow, fine, but don’t claim that TPTB promised a fix and then failed to come through. No one (but you) has claimed any sort of “promise.” What **wolf\_meister** et. al. said was that the folks in charge have said, basically, “we know there is a problem and we’re doing what we can” for at least five years, implying that they expected it to get better. This is apparent in at least the last two quotes I posted: “It’s being looked at” and “It’s happening slowly, but it is happening.” FWIW, I don’t have that many problems with board timeouts and speed, and it has, indeed, gotten a lot better than it was in the past. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979/40 "2006-07-13T04:11:27Z")
**Troy McClure** > [@](#): > > No problem, I’m sure you’ll come along and post links to all of the staff’s promises to this effect, right? Well, geez - where in any of my posts did it state these were official SDMB™ announcements, promises, policies, etc? Even when I stated: > [@](#): > > I thought when the “Powers That Be” switched to paid memberships and running Google ads, everything would improve. that’s just offering _my_ opinion which I _think_ would have been shared by everyone. Unless, all the SDMB membership were hoping “geez with all this increased revenue, the board performance is going to get _really_ shitty”. You seem to be quite eager to defend the way this board is run. In school, did you remind the teacher to assign homework? 🙂 I think the thread topic isn’t the most vital concern of the moment and I think you are taking this topic much too seriously. (Hey wait a minute - you are Cecil aren’t you? I _knew_ it!!!) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-server-s/363979.md?page=3)