I'd like to put in "my two pennies worth" in here if I may. I've been fortunate in that I've rarely experienced these outages, but that may relate to my browsing and posting habits. Maybe I'm not here enough to really have become aware of the issue. If the sight's down or slow I just get on with something else and then come back to the sight and give it another go.
People's interest and commitment to this sight naturally come from a multitude of angles. Whether they be from new members trying to get advice, older hands looking for modifications to enhance thier Zed or road trip routes they can exploit. We also have a large number of traders, professional and otherwise, offering their services through the forum for our consideration and our / their benefit. Then we have have the social aspect of the forum, which is a key part of it's existence and success in my view.
All of these things I value, despite how little I post or get involved, it's what keeps me coming back here. It's what is important enough for me to visit this site 95% of the time before I look at any other.
If there is an ongoing issue, although I've not been overly aware of it then I'll offer my help. This is the only way that I guess we'll get this issue resolved and restore the best level of service to users, traders, visitors and the like.
If these issues have been occuring at a consistent time and period would it help if I am online and using the forum in as many ways as I can, keeping a log and testing whatever functionality is available? Would this help to form a more detailed picture as to the cause of the problem? It sounds like there is some sort of repeating task or service running or being used which is causing the issue. What's scheduled to run on the site servers on a consistent basis (Patching / AV updates etc)?
I'd rather put my efforts in to helping everyone on this forum enjoy the experience as much as I do rather then sit on the sidelines 'waiting' for some sort of finger pointing exercise to begin. Frankly, from any view, that really isn't going to help anyone, as justified as the frustrations and annoyances may be, the best way to sort this out is roll ones sleaves up and get stuck in to fixing it
I don't want people (Users, Traders, Mods or anyone) to feel this forum is not quite what it should be without at least making an effort to remind them or show them that it is 'exactly' what they thought it was when they first joined. An excellent forum, with commited members and users, all looking to get the best out of a common interest.
So what do you want me to do mods?