TV Forum - 83% slower than the rest of the Internet

According to Alexa, TV Forum is one of the slowest websites on the Internet (as if we didn't know!).

So, why then?

1. Absolutely crap hosts
2. Far too much flash, javascript, imagery etc. on the homepage
3. Cluttered homepage
4. Poorly layed out site
5. Not enough quality content (why did the news feature stop?)

But, as usual our constructive comments will fall upon deaf ears. I'll probably get banned for saying this now.

What are your opinions?

Not sure that I'd class your comments as in any way constructive, but I'd agree that the site does get rather slow at times.

And whilst on the subject, why do I always get the 'Cannot connect to database' screen much more often on a Saturday morning than at other times? It's not like the site's at its busiest then.

What does this have to do with load speed?

I suspect it the server it's hosted on is busy, lots of other websites it may host are probally very busy. But I must say I do find there is lot of "junk" on the forum that may look pretty but it largly unnessasary.

But having said that, with content, it's a forum, we make the content, we could easyly make a dedicated roundup thread for the day's events or something.

Yes, the hosts can be crap sometimes, with TVF sometimes falling offline for hours on end. I don't think there is much Asa can do about it other than change hosts - I don't know how much he does pay for the hosting package each year, but he should be able to demand a reasonable level of service from the operator - and falling offline for hours is not what I call reasonable.

Plus, the "server too busy" message can get annoying if loads of people try and access the site at once. It puts people off, even casual visitors and lurkers from coming.

I don't know whether it's a problem with the way the site is coded, or a limit of the hosts, but something has to give, I never see such error messages on other sites even if they're busy (ref. Digital Spy; although they have had their fair share of technical problems recently as they installed new servers). But the bottom line is, it puts people off from visiting, regulars, first timers and long time lurkers alike. And it's something that needs to be addressed.

The flash I think is a bit un-necessary. Plus, have you ever tried it on a Mac In Safari? I was on a Mac the other day browsing TVF and I found that the animated buttons seemed to slow down really badly on the Mac - I don't know whether it's causing the Mac to grind to a halt, of if it's just a bug in Flash for the Mac. Still, I think some static images would be better all round; keep it simple.

The layout is OK but I'm still not terribly used to the menus at the top. The old jump between forums one was better.

As for content - I don't know. I never really visit as much as I used to and I never post often either these days. Maybe it's because TV presentation has gone stale and that this place no longer has a buzzing lounge that it did in the days of old? Or perhaps I just can't be arsed to read through the hundred or so page threads of slightly obsessive discussion about newsreaders and local news programmes? Or could it be that the passing interest I have had in TV pres is waning and that it's time to move on?

Well as a professional web designer, the reason is because of the hosts plus phpBB, Asa is using a very old version of the software, but he has done a great job with it, unfortunately bulletin boards created with phpBB are very slow, Asa should consider vBulletin instead, it's much more rubust and is what Digital Spy runs on.

Sounds like a Ryan Pannell thing. Anyone for weekly forum reviews ?

I give you 6.

No, think it's more due to the fact that less people are saying im not I'm nowadays.

Asa should look for a CSS menu rather then a Javascript one, too be honest he should being back the jump menu, as you have to scroll all the way back up to navigate.

i would like to see you create a forum as good as this one i think the speed of this forum is ok at least you can see the content on it thats all that counts.

I run a forum thanks very much, and it's a hell of a lot quicker than this one. I actually invested time in programming it properly, and without silly gimmicks like flash and sliding logos.