It takes forever for a page to load, and to go to the different topics… WHY??? I don’t have this kinda time.
I hear ya. It drives me nuts. I think there is more traffic on this board than most. Anyone?
It’'s been very frustrating for me, too; half the time I come on I say the hell with it. Even the straightdope link provided byLolaBaby took eons to start loading, and I said the hell with that. I guess Chicago Reader has other priorities than speeding up this MB.
It seems much faster late at night… when everyone’s sleeping… ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ [We need a sleepy smilie!]
Try searching in ATMB for ‘slow’ its got hundreds of messages on it. I suppose
this topic is gonna be sent there soon. Anyway, ironically, searching probably
slows things down a little too. sigh
Gosh, is this board really THAT successful? I swear its the slowest board on the net.
Over to ATMB
cleops - The Chicago Reader is not interested in speeding up this board because it would mean increased cost for them, and no revenue. This board is (at the moment anyways) 100% free, and it is kept running by the kindness of the Reader, a couple of occasional hamster sacrifices, and Jerry the Tech God. There have been many fixes to speed this thing up, but increased speed means increased demand (you’d post more often if it was faster, right?) and in the end everything balances out again to its regular slow pace.
I’m not sure where the pay-to-post plans are at, and whether thats going to go over any time soon, but if that happens, there will likely be an investment into a better server, and things will speed up significantly (or, at least, thats part of the expectations). I can’t speak for other posters, and an Admin might know more about this, but I think part of the PTP dilemma is the chance of losing a lot of valuable posters, and that this board might just end up going under (which I dearly hope doesn’t happen if we go to PTP!!)
Part of the fun of the boards is the interesting stuff you can get out of it. My solution is to try opening a couple of tabs (windows) at once, and let 2 or 3 load while I read another thread. Or, I have another tab open with a different website (currently my school one) to give me something else to do while I wait. Or I go cook supper, or clean something, and come back in a little while once the pages have loaded. Maybe slow boards are a good thing. I am somewhat more productive 
Please read the FAQ threads in ATMB.