I have noticed that every day at about 9:30 GMT the boards.straightdope.com is down for about an hour or so. straightdope.com is still available though. Is this due to maintenance?
I’d been wondering that, too. I guess it must be intentionally done at the same time every day…
Ummm, lessee, 9:30 GMT, add 6, carry the 1, divide by the hypoteneuese… so that’s around 2:30 AM Chicago Time, which is when the boards have their regular maintenance as you surmise.
Yes, we know that it’s very US-centric to pick a time when there are few US users on, but could be lots of Europeans. However, (a) most of our users ARE in the US, and (b) now that we’ve got members all around the globe, any time we picked would be inconvenient for some of them. Sorry.
No need to apologise C K Dexter Haven 
I was not complaining about that. I was just curious.
May I ask what type of maintenance is that? Are you making backups of the boards or something?
I shut down my browser and make a coffee.
Unless we have dopers in the Azores, maybe their 9.30 am would be more suitable - how many US dopers are on the boards around 3.30 am Eastern? I’m sure there are a few, but would the numbers exceed the European dopers who get a time-out first thing in the morning? Not complaining, since I’m used to it, just a thought that there are huge swathes of ocean with no dopers in that you could inconvenience instead. 
I have to think that a 10:30 AM outage for British time zones, and 11:30 for Europe, wouldn’t be any more convenient than a 9:30/10:30 period…
Actually, the board is down from ~3:30 to ~4:30 a.m. for me. Probably a Daylight Saving Time thing.
Given that around 80% of SDMB members log in from North America, it seems sensible that the board closes down between the hours of 1.30am (Pacific Time) and 5.30am (Eastern Time) - daylight saving adjusted. This was traffic is minimally disrupted, as designed, presumably.
So. . . what kind of maintenance is it?
Changing the paper in the hamster cage?
No, they put new paper in the hamsters’ printer. Aaaaaaaand, they cart off the dozens of printouts from www.hothamsterbabes.com . Then they delete all the cookies from hamsters.unite.org/
Then they take a break.
I got a 404 when I clicked on that link, thank Og.
It’s convenient, unless you’re up all night like me…
Wrong way - it would be 7.30 am to 8.30 am European - much more convenient for us, and not terribly inconvenient for you lot.
Damn you, AskNott! Don’t tease me like that!
I guess I was a trifle confused. The original statement is that the outages are happening around 9:30 GMT. I think (I’m not sure) they’re usually done around 2 or 3 AM CST (Chicago time), so that would jive with 9:30 GMT. And that means the current maintainance is around 3:30 Eastern Time.
So when jjimm suggested moving the outage to 3:30 Eastern time, I wrongly read that as moving it from 2:30 AM to 3:30 AM Chicago time. And that would be 9:30 to 10:30 AM GMT. In actuality, 3:30 AM Eastern Time is where we are now.
Moving it up to 1:30 Chicago time, that would be 11:30 PM California time (the night before), which would be inconvenient for posters in California, Alaska, Hawaii, etc.
I’m getting a headache. If you’d just use a stop clock instead of one that moves, you could set the stopped clock at a time when you’re asleep, and lo! the board would be down at that time.
It’s 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. IST for me. I try to schedule lunch around then, or do regular non-SDMB 'net stuff for an hour.
For those of you bummed out by AskNott’s dirty little trick, here are some real hamster cuties.
Uh, no. The board goes dark from 4:30 - 5:30 a.m. Eastern Time. I’m frequently stuck trying to open all the pages of a thread in new tabs before the shutdown, and then stuck waiting around for 5:30 a.m. (and the 5 a.m. hour is dismal for TV which makes it all the more boring) restart so that I can post my replies. I’d say that I’m on the boards at the blackout time 5 mornings out of 7, so I’m certain of which I speak.