S-l-o-w forum.

[C0ldf1re]

Am I just unlucky in joining this forum at a bad time?

It is taking nearly a minute to load a page.

[vangogh]

It's probably not you. It's on the most server I can afford at the moment, which unfortunately means it gets slow at times. I'm looking into upgrading the server, but can't justify it yet.

[Steve B]

I never noticed it being slow. All pages load in less than 1 or 2 seconds for me.

[Spider]

I'm noticing it very slow, but I put that down to the nature of CMS. The more content there is for the servers to sort through to create each page, even the same page for different people, the longer it is going to take. Is it not possible to delete older content, say all posts over 12 months old?

[Business Attorney]

Is it not possible to delete older content, say all posts over 12 months old?

Vangogh can answer this, I'm sure, but I suspect that many of the older posts continue to help bring new members to the forum.

[Spider]

I'm sure they do, David, (especially yours and mine ! :-D ) but an ever-slowing forum also drives them away. So VG must either part with some money or start charging us a membership fee (and potentially drive some of us away) or lose some potential new forumites because they weren't attracted by the deleted content. A tricky decision perhaps but not an earth-shattering one, I think.

[vangogh]

I'm not planning on deleting older posts. The content holds a lot of value.


must either part with some money or start charging us a membership fee

Actually I think there's a wider range of options.

[KristineS]

It's just growing pains, which happens with every site at some point. I've noticed it being a bit slow on occasion, but I don't think it's been that bad.

[billbenson]

Its probably slow, more from a lot of people accessing the website at one time (including G and other bots) than the size of the database. Database calls are fast, but then again if a bunch of people are doing it at the same time it will slow things down. Remember there are probably a lot of lurkers accessing the site as well.

[Steve B]

It's as fast as it always has been at 4am when I usually log on.

[vangogh]

My main site is also on the same server so when I write a post that's pulling a lot of traffic it likely affects what goes on here. Usually the slowness here is when you're doing something that's searching the database. I've noticed it's usually much quicker to access the home page of the forum than it is to access the results new posts or today's posts, both of which are just search results.

Every so often I make some tweaks designed to speed things up a little though I'm not sure how effective any have been.

[greenoak]

i havent noticed any difference ...or any problems

[tylerhutchinson]

I never had any real problems with the speed on here. Other forums yes, but not this one!

[vangogh]

Interesting Tyler. I do find the place slow at times. I've been making small changes here and there, but I haven't changed anything significant yet. I don't think it's the server as what I currently pay for should be more than enough to host what I have on the account. For me the forum is sometimes quick and sometimes slow depending on time of day and what I'm specifically doing here.

[C0ldf1re]

It is still the second slowest forum that I visit.

(Most of the time. It just speeded up for this post!)

[Spider]

Stupid suggestion, I'm sure - but it started going slow for me about the time I noticed you had reduced the size of the text. I cannot imagine there would be any connection between the two but one notices what one notices.

[vangogh]

Yeah I doubt it has anything to do with the text size, however that's the last time I upgraded the software I think. It's possible the specific version of vBulletin we're using is part of the problem. Another upgrade is on my todo list. I'm waiting for a weekend night when no one is around, but I have a free hour or so.