-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 1
FAQ
Once Andre and Amber announced that they were shutting MLKSHK down, a dedicated group of volunteer users came together to see if they could keep the site going under a new name - MLTSHP. (pronounced: Malt Shop!) A slack group has been created (https://mltshp.slack.com) so that users could
- Receive announcements and status updates on the project
- Volunteer to help, and
- Hang out with other cool people and increase our sense of community.
The new site could not continue with the old name or the old graphics due to various personal and legal concerns. We had to think of a new name and - after a brief discussion on slack - someone suggested the name MLTSHP and it seems to have stuck.
The Slack group! When you log into https://mltshp.slack.com, you will see a welcome message from Slackbot that will point you to several linked resources, which you can also access via the link below. You can also join the #announce channel on slack to continue receiving the most up-to-date announcements. https://github.com/mltshp/welcome
The current plan is to retain as much of the same functionality of the site as we can. Users should have access to all of their previous images, private shakes, comments, etc, and can keep the community going on MLTSHP. There will be some sort of "Yes keep my stuff!" hurdle/button/choice as we move stuff from Point A to Point B.
That’s the general goal, but specific details are still being debated by the technical team. You can track the #technology channel for the conversation, and any major changes will be posted to the #announce channel as they are available.
These are the biggest changes for the new site that will be implemented at launch:
- All memberships will be paid: single scoop level for $3 per year, double scoop level for $24 per year. The goal of charging even a minimal amount is to greatly reduce the amount of spam accounts on the site, improving content quality and reducing costs.
- The site will only be viewable by members who are logged in. This is primarily meant to reduce bandwidth costs, but there is ongoing discussion whether there will be some sort of public preview option for the popular page, and possibly others.
- Hotlinking to images on Mltshp will be limited to specific services. Details are being discussed, but the goal is to reduce bandwidth costs that can be most volatile for images reshared on other services. The current plan is that hotlinked images will be available, but link to a smaller size image.
There are a few reasons - for one, we are trying to save and maintain the close-knit community of users that has grown around MLKSHK, and the concern is that this community energy would dissipate and dissolve if we tried to merge with a larger site.
Other reasons are technical - in that we would lose some of the functionality we’ve grown used to, or that another site would have problems with us trying to import terabytes of existing images and associated metadata.
Lastly, it’s good to remember that Andre could have sold his existing code to someone else (and probably have it end up just another advertising/content distribution platform). But -instead - he gave that code to the volunteers in this community to take over, and that is a big deal. We try to honor the spirit in which MLKSHK was created by keeping it going in a by-us-for-us manner.
Because MLKSHK is shutting down soon, things are moving fast. Here are some of the milestones below:
- March 25 - need to start domain name transfer (can take 2 weeks).
- April 1 - site disables uploads and starts the shutdown process.
- April 13 - mlkshk.com domain name scheduled to expire.
- April 15 - last date we can get keys/passwords and still stay online.
- May 1 - site is officially shut down.
- May 29 - current Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificate expires. You can see the latest list of launch TODO items at https://github.com/MLTSHP/mltshp_migration/wiki/MLTSHP-Launch-Hitlist. The current estimate has Mltshp launching around mid May, but timing primarily depends on volunteer coding and configuration work.
You blinked and missed one of them! We raised almost 3K which will go to start up costs and then into the MLTSHP bank account for future costs etc. Once the MLTSHP site is open, we will have a second "fund drive" in the form of various site-subscription options to make sure we can fund the site consistently going forward.
If you are technically savvy, feel free to join the MLTSHP GitHub at https://github.com/MLTSHP. Add your info to the technology team charter on the GitHub Welcome Repo.
If you have free time for admin work, get in touch with @jessamyn and join the conversation in #governance. If you are independently wealthy or have experience with fundraising, join the conversation at #money.
For creative types, we are still gathering alternative name suggestions on a doc on the GitHub Welcome Repo.
If you have other ideas, feel free to reach out to @jessamyn, @vosechu, or @vai.
You can join the #feature-requests channel on slack if you would like to make suggestions for features you’d like to see going forward. Please be patient, as our volunteer coders will be giving priority to issues around getting the site running, and making sure existing functionality is ported over as seamlessly as possible. As soon as all of those issues are up and running, the coders can evaluate and decide on new features.
You can review the current backlog of bugs and feature requests (below), add your own wishlist ideas, or connect with the technology team to pitch in with coding work.
Do I need to be in the github org to see the issues backlog that's linked to from the feature request spreadsheet?
Nope! you can add issues at https://github.com/MLTSHP/mltshp_migration/issues