That is likely an error of perception. It may seem like “all hours”, but even Jerry has acknowledged the downtime, so obviously had you been on at those times, your page would not have been found. 
Let me offer a bit of insight into the hierarchy of the Board.
At the lowest rung are Moderators. We’re more powerful than posters, but we have very limited powers. If you are a guest or a spammer, I can ban you if I feel like it. I have access to places that posters don’t.
Administrators, of whom there are currently three( Dex, Tuba, Gaudere) have more powers and more access than Moderators do. But they still are at a power level much lower than what I think the TM assume.
Ed Zotti is titled an “Administrator,” but I think he would qualify as “Super-Admistrator.”
jdavis, “Jerry the Tech God” is also listed as an “Administrator.” Jerry probably has the most power of all. He’s the mechanic that keeps this beater running.
The titles under their board names are the only choices that we have, since we’re using vBulletin. I think I’m correct. If not, someone else who runs vBulletin can correct me.
On a level above Administrators are the owners of the Reader(and their employees). They can really make the final decisions.
The three default “Administrators” with whom you are all the most familiar, Dex, Tuba, and Gaudere, are merely conduits for information provided by “Administrators” above them. They can’t really unilatterly make a policy such as “let’s give disgruntled posters a refund.”
My point is, the Administrators of the Board are sincere people. They don’t knowingly post things that are merely pablum, or concocted to keep the TM down. They ain’t putting saltpeter in your dinner.
Complaints are always welcome. They help businesses to perform better. Sometimes the complaints are valid, some are less so. How you present your complaint can make a world of difference in how the business takes it. Sarcastic? Not a problem. Demanding–usually not a problem. Threatening–Not the best way to approach someone.
Good post, Samclem. But sarcastic can do us in sometimes, depending on the mood of the admin.
Somebody’s putting saltpeter in my dinner?!?
I am as irritable as anyone else about the recent slowdowns and outages, but just to address the idea that the boards used to be faster before we went pay-to-post: Oh, hells no.
I remember a few years back, trying to get another online acquaintance to join up, and his response was, “Yeah, that site looks really interesting but I can never get it to load and I got tired of waiting.” The boards were notoriously slow, to the point of being unusable. Almost every time I tried to load a page, it would take a few minutes at least, except maybe at low-traffic times such as 3 AM. I had time to go make myself a sandwich while waiting for a particularly long GD screed to load.
Seriously, it’s not great now, but it used to be so much worse. Not that I wouldn’t like it to be even better, of course.
THE STRAIGHT DOPE
Fighting Performance Problems Since 1973
(It’s Taking Longer Than We Thought)
Now see, I never thought of this before. What, exactly, is taking longer? Thanks for posting this. Maybe they were trying to tell us that the board was slow the entire time?
So if I post in here that I don’t like the way the site is slow or unresponsive from time to time, my connection will get better right?