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An update on current forum status and errors 9/29/14

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  • Tom's Hardware
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September 29, 2014 1:07:30 PM

"Quick note about our forum - we're still experiencing some issues related to the technical problems with Amazon Web Services, so our forum login servers, threads, and commentary system might be a little bumpy for a while. Please bear with us in the meanwhile. Thanks for your patience!"

Per Joe Pishgar on the Tom's Hardware Facebook page.

More about : update current forum status errors

September 29, 2014 7:05:35 PM

"A little bumpy" is an understatement. :) 
September 30, 2014 1:12:09 AM

Currently the site (UK) is running extremely slowly and is logging me off/on at random. This makes it very difficult to use and hardly worth the effort at the moment.
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September 30, 2014 6:42:00 AM

Today, I had a private message that took a while to say I had actually read it.
September 30, 2014 6:53:58 AM

Many apologies for all the errors and blank pages! We appear to be (hopefully) back up; that last half hour or so of outage was Amazon rebooting their servers yet again. Sorry it's been a rough couple of days around here, but if Amazon wants to reboot the database and DNS servers, it's not really within our control. Here's hoping they've got things sorted out on their end so we can get back to normal over here!
September 30, 2014 7:08:31 AM

Loading a page with all the "call outs" to other pages on other sites sure does slow up loading..... AV programs that look for 0 day threats have to "look" at each site making it even more drawn out.

What is the purpose of calling out to all these other sites ?
September 30, 2014 7:10:58 AM

JackNaylorPE said:


What is the purpose of calling out to all these other sites ?



Money, what else? Tom's floods us with ads so they can make money. That's why I hardly ever read Tom's articles - I have to be *so* careful where my mouse is or some pop-up or other will activate - it's just not worth the aggravation.
September 30, 2014 7:17:17 AM

We try pretty hard to keep the ads non-intrusive. If there are any you feel are a particular nuisance, that may have slipped past us, you're encouraged to alert us of the ad (preferably with a screenshot or description of the ad when possible) so that we can take care of it. That being said, yes, we do make money off the ads. It's part of our revenue, and helps us to pay our employees and contractors, keep things up and running, and continue to put out content for readers.
September 30, 2014 7:17:57 AM

I have ad block plus and Ghostey running .... was beginning to wonder if it was some attempt to fight with those guys :) 
September 30, 2014 7:24:25 AM

Titillating said:
We try pretty hard to keep the ads non-intrusive. If there are any you feel are a particular nuisance, that may have slipped past us, you're encouraged to alert us of the ad (preferably with a screenshot or description of the ad when possible) so that we can take care of it. That being said, yes, we do make money off the ads. It's part of our revenue, and helps us to pay our employees and contractors, keep things up and running, and continue to put out content for readers.


I can tell you flat-out that the practice of hot-linking random words in articles is so annoying that I don't read your articles. Most people that consistently use your site probably uses multiple ad-blockers - even your own moderating staff. How's that work out revenue-wise?

But sorry, not trying to start a fight. There are plenty of other places that don't hot-link their content. (Cough, Anandtech, cough, techreports, cought, etc... ) You guys do what you think is right, I like your forums, so I use those. The ads and articles - not so much.

September 30, 2014 7:46:46 AM

The forums are essentially ad-free for all but the newest users, and it only takes a few quality posts to get there (5 BA, I believe it was?). As for the articles, well, those are often written for the purposes of helping people make educated purchases. Anandtech's and others' reviews are for the same purpose, but we also seek to simplify the purchase by directing users to the appropriate products. If you take a look at Purch, our parent company who pretty much owns and operates Tom's Hardware, you'll see that this is their goal and is reflected across all our affiliated sites.

I get that a lot of people will use ad blockers--I don't blame them. Ads can get annoying, for sure. We would ask that you whitelist us though, if you feel so inclined. Like I said, we try to keep it unobtrusive, and we certainly don't want to overwhelm anybody with ads, but we do make mistakes and we need feedback and complaints in order to fix that and improve on things.
September 30, 2014 6:26:26 PM

yes a bit issues are there but over all it is good
!