I have aol broadband platinum. This philosophy site takes 20 seconds to download on average, but most of the time it says the page is unavailable. Will someone bloody fix it or I’m off. Wrong forum? Oh really? No, its this bloody forum thats playing up.
JJ
I have the same experience too–whether I’m making a post or just browsing. Then if my post gets through, I find that I’ve made, without knowing it, the same post twice or three times–when it said page cannot open or something like that. What gives?
I’ll tell you what it is. The bloody moderators aren’t getting rid of the old mail. All the old shit that’s clogging up the airwaves has to rumble and fart its way through before we get a look in. That means that behind the philosophy page you are viewing lies tons of posts, like aged turds gone hard and white, except the ones that started out as diarrhoea. These have just gone sticky.
COMON GUYS GEDDIT FIXED!
mmmmm…wonderful metaphors. Just as I was about to have lunch. Well, lunch can wait. 
Anyway, is that what it is? Then, there’s definitely work to do, and the site is not a hopeless case. So, don’t leave just yet.
…maybe its too may flies wanting to land on the same “piece” at the same time. Granted sometimes it “seems” to take a little long to submit one’s coprolite of wisdom but if you wait 30 or 45 seconds longer the expected always happens. 
It is a matter of server resources. Ideally, a forum of this size should be hosted on a dedicated server. As it is, ILP.com shares a server with 160+ other websites. Some may even be as busy if not more so, than ILP. 
Well, I am sure the bandwidth for this site isn’t free.
Traffic and content have both increased here in the last couple of months as opposed to when I first started visiting… perhaps it is time for a server upgrade?
perhaps it is time for some banner ads to pay for it too… i’ll be the first to say i wouldn’t mind if it has to happen… traffic= $$$
Some google ads along the top or bottom would, I am sure, tempt most users to click each time they come to post something.
This in turn might even pay for a VPS or who knows. It would certainly earn some sort of income.
Hi all,
Thanks for bringing this up, you are right in suggesting that the slowness of the site is due to an influx of new users. I never imagined it would get this big and so never bothered to look into new hosting. However, I am starting to look at other places and also the costs involved and time it would take to move all the stuff over, databases etc.
Obviously money is an issue since I am a student, which is why there is a paypal donation button on the front page. Any donations are extremely welcome! When I have a bit more time I will make a proper post on all the ins and outs and maybe you can give me some feedback on it.
John Jones, get off my site, you are wasting bandwidth.
- ben
any other ways to send donations besides paypal? Such as, check, money order, by mail? or debit card?
ben, do you make any income out of this site? I’m not talking about profit.
How much advertising money does Ben get from the five philosophers in the banner ad on the upper left of the main page? Is that paid for by third-parties?
ben, if you started something good, then keep it that way man.
Money… my real name might give you some suggestions.
Yeah, but it’s Aristotle who probably has the big bucks…married to a princess and all.
You should seriously get a government grant for this site! I’m very poor myself, but I’m seriously considering a nominal donation. Although a list of donors might look “tacky”, i think.
And allow longer post titles ben…
Hi,
Uniqor, the only income I get from the site is from donations that members kindly give. So far the donations have paid for approx 1 years hosting but that’s pretty much run out now. Obviously if I changed to a faster host the price would go up.
Arendt, yes there are other ways, PM me with your preferred way of donating and we’ll see what we can do.
cheers
- ben
Hi,
I’ve spoken with the people who host the site and they said they’re looking into the slowness problems. It seems a lot faster for me already and i’m not getting any timeout pages when i post. Please let me know if things have changed for you.
cheers
- ben