Power Hungry forum

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My membership isn’t on auto renew so I had a couple of days as a ‘new user’ this week.
I don’t understand the “clock ticking until the next refresh” issue. Perhaps it’s because I almost exclusively view the forum on my iPhone (although I do occasionally check in on a laptop) but when I had the ads before subscribing again, I only recall having to wait a split second for all the ads to load before the page settled down and I could read without issue.

I am also on iPhone when this occurs, and I have fiber internet supplying my home, so it is not a connection speed/quality issue on my end. The page goes blank, and then slowly reloads all the text, photos and (animated) ads. Dumping me either in a random location on the correct page, or at the very top. This refresh happens every so often (I have not timed it out- could be random, or a fixed interval), and as I am navigating my way back to where I was, it refreshes again on me, repeating the above...

It it hadnt been for wanting to contribute to the forum, I could have happily participated with the ads.
Is it much worse on certain browsers?

Not sure about other browsers. On a computer running windows using "Edge", I do not get the refresh issues, only the pop-up issues.

Regarding pop ups being in the way of things like the reply button, I actually did have that a couple of times and could see that being irritating but it’s a single click to close individual ads down.

On a computer I can precisely place the cursor to "X" rather than click the pop-up. On the phone, my fingers need to be sharper to have that resolution, and my eyes are no longer 20-13 either... They also pop up at the buttons to navigate to the next page of a thread or search list (such as new posts).
 
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That’s why we’re trying to grow the stories section as it gets that much higher rate but has a fraction of the traffic, and eventually it can take some burden off the forum but we go through so much traffic and storage that our servers are rather costly to run.

Is there any consideration to turning some of the more indepth posts (ie - how to fish) into an article/story? Obviously with permission from the poster. There's so much great content that could be converted into standalone articles and give the authoritative boost for Google's algorithm.

Content creation is hard and one person writing articles isn't going to get there.
 
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Is there any consideration to turning some of the more indepth posts (ie - how to fish) into an article/story? Obviously with permission from the poster. There's so much great content that could be converted into standalone articles and give the authoritative boost for Google's algorithm.

Content creation is hard and one person writing articles isn't going to get there.
Possibly but the issue is duplicating content carries a penalty rather than being of benefit and I wouldn’t want to take it away from the forum just to put it there
 
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I am a member of 6 other watch forums. I have been enjoying this forum for 11 years. I gave up collecting, and did not log into any of my watch forum accounts for about 6 years. a couple of months ago I have a come back. (Watch bug kicked in again) This is one of the forums I logged in again right away. I can not log in to some forums without being a 'paid' member, but I am enjoying this forum for free with ads which generates a little revenue for the mods to be able to handle the costs and expenses to serve us the watch collectors. So, no complaints on my side about the ads.
 
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The ads don't bother me as much as the random disconnections and refresh episodes.

And it still consumes battery at about 1% per minute. The phone gets physically hot to the touch, and this is not something that happens on other (watch, or other topic) forums, regardless of advertisement volume. There is something else going on here...
 
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The ads don't bother me as much as the random disconnections and refresh episodes.

And it still consumes battery at about 1% per minute. The phone gets physically hot to the touch, and this is not something that happens on other (watch, or other topic) forums, regardless of advertisement volume. There is something else going on here...

what phone? what browser? maybe you answered this already, if so, i apologize for making you duplicate information.
 
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The ads don't bother me as much as the random disconnections and refresh episodes.

And it still consumes battery at about 1% per minute. The phone gets physically hot to the touch, and this is not something that happens on other (watch, or other topic) forums, regardless of advertisement volume. There is something else going on here...
I wonder if you can minimize the ads by an ad blocker on your phone. I have an ad blocker on my computer, but I am not sure if it is the same for the phones.
 
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The ads don't bother me as much as the random disconnections and refresh episodes.

And it still consumes battery at about 1% per minute. The phone gets physically hot to the touch, and this is not something that happens on other (watch, or other topic) forums, regardless of advertisement volume. There is something else going on here...
I probably do 50% browsing on a desktop, 40% on a tablet and 10% on an Android phone, and have seen no issues at any time over the years. But I pay for the non-ads subscription, couldn't stand to see ads popping up all the time. This just might be a quirk with your phone, I haven't seen other complaints. And you could always consider getting a Tier 1 subscription on OF, $50 a year, or 13.7 cents a day, hardly a burden.
Edited:
 
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The ads don't bother me as much as the random disconnections and refresh episodes.

And it still consumes battery at about 1% per minute. The phone gets physically hot to the touch, and this is not something that happens on other (watch, or other topic) forums, regardless of advertisement volume. There is something else going on here...
Can you try installing and using the Brave browser and see if that helps? I think it might solve your problem.