Yeah, the forum is what it is. We are running on an old version of an old software (vBulletin), but it runs just fine. It would be great to upgrade but I do not know enough about that for the benefits to outweigh the risks. The biggest risk to me is to lose the old post database in a conversion, since that history is the great thing about this place.

The issue is on the site/hosting. This site is hosted in a linux-based platform and I do not know linux. When I try to bone up on some basics, I go and find that we have a lot of custom/old settings that simple tutorials will not give me enough information to solve. Many of those answers are on prior tech admin hard drives or in their heads. It is tough for me to bother these guys who have their own lives that have moved on from EoFF, though I will say that everyone has been very forthcoming and helpful when I do bug them.

What I am trying to do is really two things:
1. Make the place run smoother. It usually runs fine but there are odd spikes in activity that cause slowdowns. I am 90% sure this is due to bots.
2. Reduce the monthly cost. It is about $60 a month to host EoFF which to me is entirely too much for a barely active website. The cost goes to two things: CPU and storage. We can reduce both to go to a lower tier.
For CPU, I think limit the bots and we are good.
For storage, there is something bloating up the DB that is not the current posting activity. Due to the limitations of the site as it is built (and my own limitations), I have yet to figure out what that is. The post database is not large enough to justify how much storage we are using.