I too would like to know what staff are doing about this. It is incredibly frustrating.
I’ve honestly just resorted to ignoring the forum for the most part until the “busy hours” are done each evening.
It’s basically unusable.
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Maybe the servers would function better if the rambling, self-centred fuckwits took their ‘war on woke’ somewhere that isn’t here?
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Sorry guys we are going to have to live with it, the cost to increase resources for occasional spikes in traffic isn’t worth the spend especially as our ad revenue is dried up significantly
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Oh sorry to hear that.
Can I ask what caused this, a change in the way the site receives revenue, do we need to click on ads more to increase it, or are we seeing less traffic?
I don’t know, I suspect, though, it is a result of a few things, but more people block ads now (I can understand why)
We’re also getting paid less because of the exchange rate while paying more for the same reason
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The idea was mentioned here a while ago about offering a paid subscription.
“MediaSpy+”? 
I’d definitely sign up if it meant the money went towards better server resources and upkeep.
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I’ve looked into paid subscriptions as an option, and it becomes complicated administratively given how we operate - it’s just not something I’m in a position to be able to do.
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I am sure the spam ads we were (are?) getting also have played a part in reduced revenue if people aren’t clicking as a result…
I presume something like Patreon is out of the question? I throw a couple of coins in the tin each month for a few people/podcasts I like - the least I could do is do the same for here given this site has distracted me from my core life activities for the best part of the last 20 years.
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I’ll investigate more options again and see if we can make something work
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What about the issues of having to click into a thread three times before it becomes “read”?
It’s all connected dude
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It happens outside of the spikes though.
It’s still connected even then?
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I think so? I’m no scientician and @bacco007 would know better than I but I assume it’s either a Discourse issue speaking to the servers in that sense.
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Ah, my apologies, I thought you had a degree in MediaSpyism. 
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You’d think after 20 years I might get an honorary one at least…
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I’m happy to provide a referral if that’ll help? 
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Users can make exceptions - I do for websites I back (so long as they don’t go overboard with placement, or have pop-ups). I’m happy to put up with the relentless and pointless Temu ads if it helps pay for the hamster-feed.
I’m not, the ads here are massive and ugly. Tvtonight though has some of the worst I’ve ever seen.
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