After studying the lag problem carefully, I have come to the conclusion that we need to upgrade the server. We're getting hammered by googlebots. There is no way to rate limit them, and blocking them entirely is not an option. So, the only option available to us is to increase CPUs and memory to handle the extra load. (Thanks a lot, Google.) I have notified John and Peggy. It's up to them to make the decision.
If we do upgrade the server, there wil almost certainly be an interruption in service. We'll try to give you as much advance notice as possible.
With regard to the fatal error message that HotRod mentioned, that's a known problem, already reported to the developers of the forum software. We wait for them to provide a fix.
