crosseyed: timeout doesn't necessarily mean slow. it can mean the site was unavailable at the time. I noticed that sometimes BrainKing goes offline for about a minute (most people have come to associate that with upgrades to the site or posts on BrainKing.info, though Fencer never admited any of that afaik).
If you're using IE7 you will most likelly notice a difference between IE and Firefox (in FF's favor), so you should definitelly repeat the test at another time...

crosseyed: Im using firefox , a little slow at times but working ok for me

<dir>

I decided to try using firefox to see if it would be any faster than IE this what happend:

The connection has timed out

The server at brainking.com is taking too long to respond.

* The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few

moments.

So it is Brainking that is too slow.

</dir>

Liquid: i just went down and have been moving slow all morning not just gammonator

Gammonator: ... we have no performance trouble, at this time. Must be something wrong on the way from our servers to your computer.

Fencer: 6:54am my time now 239 online and this site is slow. I know you know more about computers on your little finger than I do, but I do play some online games such as Ghost Recon,,GRAW Call of Duty and such and it seems the more players we have ,,more more likely we will lag. Yes those aare CD games and this is WWW but its still on a servorI remember a post to where you were putting more ram in your servor. Seems to me it was a couple of months ago. Maybe I am wrong and it was another site. But just maybe you received a bad stick.Thats terminology I use ,,,lol Your servor may not be anything like our home computers, Just a suggestion.

Fencer: Ok Thanks very much!

Mousetrap: Actually, it is recommended to use http://BrainKing.com instead. Unless nothing else works.

Fencer: Hey it goes to the site! I have no clue how that works but Thanks very much!

Fencer: How much would you charge to put my favorite team uniform on our beloved dragon Erving?
I'm not kidding,it could become a nice new revenue stream

Mousetrap: What happens if you try ctrl-f5 after opening that page?

I have the same probs with slowness etc.  Sometimes I give up.  

Puckish: Yeah, I agree. However, unless someone has moved, this should not affect any one players historical stats.

Mousetrap: I just tried it too & it brought me to BK

pauloaguia: That is really weird. I still get VILIK.wk.cz when I click on it lmbo!
Thanks for trying it.

Mousetrap: I clicked it and it still directs me to this site... And I've just checked the IP and that's correct.

For weeks I have been using the above url to login into Brainking because it would not let me in on Brainking.com. But since yesterday when I try the above url all I get is VILIK.wk.cz and am back to using Brainking.com.
Can anybody tell me why?
Thanks very much.

redfrog:I couldnt find it, so assumed it was removed ROFL.....thanks Mr Frog :)

we still got the "curse of the white page" as you put it, but it comes with slowness before timing out...nothing new LOL

jryden: One possible reason for this might be that they live in the same time zone as the servers?

For example, often when I have made what seems like a lot of moves for me, the server switches days right in the middle of it all, which makes my "daily" count seem lower.

Bernice: looks to me like the post is still there... i heard about the problem then - the curse of the white page - but that cleared up after a while right? im guessing this will too....

Jim Dandy: action points is my guess there.... everybody was scrambling for those action points in 2006 right?

jryden: What struck me,was how the "all-time" list has nobody near the top after 2006

Antje: Yeah, I've always been amazed at how many move some people can do...so, I've come to recognize many of the names. I haven't seen many of them there recently.

It seems entirely possible there is some artificial limit to the amount of bandwidth the site is allowed to send out of the country. Maybe a major internet pipe from the country has gone down??

Antje: the post was removed (I think) but day before yesterday I posted from March 2003 general moans about the slowness of the site, this was from the BK board of 5 years ago....so tell me....what is new? except it seems there are dozens if not hundreds with the problem now,

jryden: i agree.. I have many many times been on the top of that list, or the top 5 most often. i cant anymore, im lucky to make the first 50 list. its been for a couple of months now at least for me

I thought with all this discusion of the site speed, I would take a look at the top movers list.

Top Movers

Seems players in the Czech Republic have a bit of an advantage here.  Could it be that those players have better site speed/reliablility?

redfrog: Guess im one of the targets for all posts about negative/rude posts. So in order to not ruining the chances of response for all of you i'll sit back and read your polite posts.
No more ruining posts from this "Troll".
Im sure you'll be more succesful than i was

good luck

Fencer: I understand what you were trying to say now... I can fill in the techincal details by myself, no need to clutter this board with what would look like geeberish for most people
I'll wait for the details then

Fencer: the OS could recognize that a smart and instant low-level reconfiguration is required and should do it itself" which is not possible, of course. It's more complicated (Abigail please don't start a too technical discussion here)

Let's just say that "technically, it can be done (off the 'shelf' even), but then everyone's fee would have to increase a hundred or a thousand fold, and it'll take a long time to implement". (High end servers can reconfigure themselves without going down. But they are bloody expensive).

Fencer is quite right that it's impossible given the constraints (money, knowledge, labour involved) BK has.

I hope I wasn't "too" technical.

Eriisa: it was a little more technical an answer than I was looking for, but I understand the part loud and clear about a detailed overview appearing on the blog soon. That is what we have all been asking for, so thanks Fencer.

baddessi: Honestly I'm not sure what Fencer was saying. BUT what you said is true. (Number of users on the WWW at busy times that might cause the connection to slow down due to traffic on the Web between the user and BK)

Its not the end all of answers, but it is something that would happen.

pauloaguia & Fencer: edited to delete my question because it was answered before I could ask.
Thanks Fencer for the fast reply

pauloaguia: That's right. Because, given the nature of web-based request-response application, there are no online users at all - when a page is generated and sent, the user is "disconnected". It is, in most cases, the system level issue (BrainKing background processes etc.) which can (but it can never be said for sure) cause an increased allocation of resources which are always limited. But the expansion thing I have mentioned is more about "the OS could recognize that a smart and instant low-level reconfiguration is required and should do it itself" which is not possible, of course. It's more complicated (Abigail please don't start a too technical discussion here ).
I think the blog is a better place to post a detailed overview, which is what I plan to do soon.

Fencer: I've reread that statement a dozen times now and still couldn't figure out... the number of online users has very low impact on the speed, yet the server still needs an expansion?

Puckish: That could be considered.

Fencer: would you consider 3 acounts?

Puckish: But, of course, you cannot split it for 9 different users, 1 year each. All 9 years would be added to one account.

Puckish: Exactly.

I havent been able to be here much lately and might have missed this one.... does it mean if I buy a 3 year membership I will recieve 9 years?

Gammonator: Actually, the number of online users has a very low impact on that (as the meters and statistics say). It's more a system level thing. It's a pity that computer manufacturers still didn't invent how to make servers self-expandable.

now 191 and running better

Just hit 200 people online and for me it is starting to slow down... anyone else see the difference?

Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou. So many of you have stepped forward today and yesterday and let us know we are not the "certain user" minority.

I agree with the point about rewarding positive customers. I can understand why you would think that I was one of the more negative but I must tell you that it was Fencer himself who brought out the negativity. I (an Australian with English as her first and only language) saw what I thought was a very simple post about the site speed. It was responded to by the site owner in a negative fashion. Misery loves company.............well negativity breeds contempt. I had no idea there were other issues between the site owner and the poster of the message and the site owner chose to use this board to attack. And ever since then I have had a negative set against the site owner. I feel he is rude, arrogant and disrespectful and he agrees with me when he tells the whole site that one user deserves no respect. Her money earned her the simple respect of a paying customer. I would like a general apology from the site owner. We are not the trolls. You troll this site for "certain users" comments to respond to in a rude and disrespectful fashion.

I have tried to find supportive and positive ways to help fix the current problems but until the site owner admits that it is not just a bunch of whingers making up stuff to complain about then I don't think anything will be resolved.

Jim Dandy: Fencer's going to have to spend a couple hours a day just reading this board, maybe that will get the point to him.....

baddessi: You're right,it's not easy for many to post on a public board.

Jim Dandy: yes, I agree...the tone has regressed....and yes, because of frustruation. But my point is, that the tone of the board isn't helping the situation. More people are stepping up and respctfully saying that, yes, they have a problem. It's my hope that those posts won't be lost in the 'regressed tone' of the others.

baddessi: I agree,but I suspect the tone has regressed over time.I doubt the initial comments were unreasonable in MOST cases

Jim Dandy: I have to agree with Vikings....I respond that way in my work as well...I reward positive customers with exceptional service...those who are difficult and treat me disrespectfully, I don't encourage them to return...and yes, that is best for most any business.

Anastasia: yes, we want to be heard, but the intentional baiting, scorn and negative attitudes of some of the posts on this board are going to do the opposite I'm afraid and as redfrog said "run the risk or ruining any chance of a response for all of us"

And I haven't seen any posts about this subject that were removed where someone simply expressed their concerns about the speed of the site.

I also have real slow game play now, only in the day time and not on other sites.
At night it is fine but the daytime is bad and it was never like that before.

This is the first time and the last time that I will say something about it.

Everyone having this problem should come out and say something on here then the boss will know something needs to be fixed.
This might be negative but I don't care, something needs to be done.