See Re: PM News: Vote fary missing, and other stories... (corrections) for a summary of the current state of the site. When DB load doesn't exceed capacity, then page loads are around the typical (for us) 5..10 seconds. When DB load exceeds capacity, page loads can take minues which might cause your browser to time out and also increases the frequency of server errors. During busy times of the day, the DB load can fluctate from under capacity to way over capacity rather frequently.

                - tye