Question about news.php.net

If there is a more appropriate place to ask this, I apologize. Please point me in the right direction. I understand that the news server is based on a mailing list, but I can't handle another high-volume source dumping stuff into my email (even if I filter it into a separate folder) so I am trying to subscribe through the news group. However, getting access seems to be hit-and-miss, since I more often than not get a message that the connection to news.php.net timed out. Is this an indication that the server is just very busy? I don't get this on any other news server I'm using on the smae news reader and I have gotten this on two different news readers that I have tried.