Last chance to preserve old Tiddlyspot sites

I'm planning to pull the plug on old Tiddlyspot sites that have not been accessed, (even once), since Tiddlyhost started serving them around April 2021. So if you had an old old Tiddlyspot site that you want to keep, try to remember its name and make sure to visit it at least once before the cut off date.

I'll aim to answer some potential FAQs below:

When is the cut-off date?

It probably won't happen exactly at this moment, but let's say the deadline is December 31st 2022 at 11:59:59 pm.

What will happen to my old Tiddlyspot site that has not been accessed at least once since April 2021?

It will be gone forever.

How can I save it?

Remember its name and visit it at least once before the cut-off date. (The url is, as per usual, http://<sitename>.tiddlyspot.com/ ).

Do I need a Tiddlyhost account?

No. Just you or anyone visiting, (i.e. clicking on or viewing), the site once is enough to keep it alive.

Do I need to "claim" the site with my Tiddlyhost account?

No, but you're welcome to do that if you want to, and there are some advantages such as being able to change the password via Tiddlyhost, and being able to make it appear in the Tiddlyhost Hub.

How many old sites are there?

There were a total of 100607 Tiddlyspot sites created, from June 2006 to October 2020.

How many are still alive?

At present around 11% of them are still active, i.e. they have been viewed at least once since April 2021, and will continue to exist past the cut-off date. (To make sure your site is on the active list you just need to have visited it once since April 2021.)

What if I can't remember my site's name but I want to keep it alive?

Send me an email and I'll see if I can help jog your memory.

Can I request an extension to the cut-off date?

I guess so. Why do you need it? How long?

What if my old site is alive but I want to kill it?

There's no way to do that currently, but Issue #157 aims to address that. It would require that you first "claim" the site with your Tiddlyhost account, but I'm considering other options for this.

Can I import my old Tiddlyspot site into a new Tiddlyhost site?

You can. There is a guide here on how to do it for TiddlyWiki Classic sites.

Why?

Firstly, there's a bunch of code in Tiddlyhost dedicated to retrieving old sites' content from their location, detecting the old username and password, and making it all work through Tiddlyhost. I'd like to remove that code some day to reduce complexity and maintenance effort.

Secondly, the storage for the roughly 125 GB of old Tiddlyspot data incurrs a monthly bill that I'd like to stop paying, especially since its only reason for existing is in case someone wants to view one of the Tiddlyspot sites that have been ignored or abandoned since at least April 2021. (Sites that have been viewed at least once get migrated to Tiddlyhost's primary storage, so they don't need to be kept in the old storage either.)

Actually what is Tiddlyspot?

It was the predecessor to Tiddlyhost, created back in 2006. It shut down in 2020 but its content was rescued (long story) and is now served by the Tiddlyhost server.

Is there any impact on Tiddlyhost sites?

No. This is only related to Tiddlyspot sites created between 2006 and 2020, i.e. before Tiddlyhost existed.