As usual, the more detail provided, the more helpful the feedback. Times of day? Chat or forums? Slowdown present for hours on end, or a few minutes?

We do regular maintenance on the forums -- daily -- to keep the database healthy and to ensure we have minimum downtime (unlike many other online communities). Unfortunately, as we've said in the past, that maintenance means the forums (and to a lesser extent, chat), will slow down.

DocJohn