I know. Here's the deal. I'm not sorry if I get a tiny bit technical...
We use the shared hosting plan, aka the cheapest, on Dreamhost.com. What shared hosting means is that we share a server with god-knows how many other sites, with god-knows how much other traffic. All the web sites on our server share the same memory (RAM) and the same hard drives (file storage). This is why it's fairly inexpensive but it's also why I haven't pushed for any more contributions or started running ads. Yes, it's all your fault.
But something has changed. I suspect they aren't properly balancing the load or spreading the more active sites across different servers. Tech support said we'd run out of memory but I don't know if that's our allotted memory or total memory on the box.
So when the memory fills up, the site slows down. I don't know if the memory frees up naturally during weekday evenings or if the staff at Dreamhost is doing something to clear things out.
So, the long-term solution is one of the following:
1. stay with Dreamhost, carry on exactly how we are, but upgrade to what they call a Virtual Private Server. This would give me more control over how much memory we can use, however, this would triple-to-quintuple our monthly hosting cost. And we'd still be using this crusty old version of UBB Threads until I can find the time to attempt another upgrade. But I'm a web designer, not a programmer or system admin.
2. move to another host (I've been talking a bit with URLjet) and not only upgrade our plan similar to Dreamhost's VPS (similar cost as well) but have them convert the forum to VBulletin as I've been planning/trying to do for close to a year. There is a fee for that service but for all the hassle it would save me I don't care how much I have to pay. I'm just not sure how long the process will take. The site has to be locked down so we don't lose anything; at some point if I leave it up things that are posted here will not be included in the conversion and will be lost. I picked URLjet because there is lots of great feedback about them on the VBulletin forums, nary a bad word about them, and they specialize in VBulletin hosting. Going this route I'm 99.5% sure the WordPress homepage would go away, but I'd transition all the content, manually if necessary, including the featured member rides, to the VBulletin publishing system (separate from the forums).
This is not meant to be a fund raiser. If I need money I'll spread the word. We have enough left in the coffers to do the conversion. Right now it's all about timing.
