Blog roll

Almost since the inception of my blog, I've kept a list of other blogs which I've continually updated (See "Meet the family" on the right). My criteria is simple, if you have a blog, are attracted to those of your same gender (however you choose to refer to yourself), and either are, or have been, LDS then you're part of my family :) I have another list of "extended family members" who come from other faiths. And, I have a list of "friends of the family" which are blogs by straight people who are openly supportive of gay people.

There have been a few 'family' blogs I've come across which I've opted to not include because I considered them be overly critical of the LDS church. I think there are some legitimate criticisms which deserve discussion (many of which I've addressed on my blog); but, some people go overboard and fail to acknowledge anything good about the LDS church. Basically, if I recognize you as family then I view you as a person of integrity - and, although you may no longer be associated with the LDS church, and may even have strong disagreement with it in certain areas, I feel that you are respectful for those of us who choose to remain faithful and active.

Over time my list of family has grown quite large - at last count there are 148 blogs in the list. Although, not all of these are active and, in fact, some no longer exist. Early on I decided to keep deleted blogs in my list with the notation "(RIP)" - after all, they are family and, at some point in their life they reached out to the rest of the family. For whatever reason they have decided to leave the Mormon queerosphere; but, I don't want to forget about them and I hope for the best as they move on with their life. A blog is designated with "(RIP)" if the blog has been deleted entirely, or if blog url still exists but the author has deleted all of the posts.

As I come across new blogs I notate them with "(New ...)"; although, they only keep this designation for a month or so.

Some blogs are no longer actively updated which I notate with an "(R)" for retired. Over time my definition of 'retired' has evolved. Initially I only designated a blog as retired if the blogger had specifically indicated that they were going to quit blogging in their final post. My current definition is if you haven't posted a blog entry in 2008 then your blog is 'retired'. A few retired blogs have miraculously sprung back to life after a long hiatus - and I have removed the "(R)" notation accordingly.

A few blogs used to be public, but for whatever reason the author has decided to make them private. Note, if you have a blog which has always been private then I don't include it in my list - I only include those which were public at some point, but I will remove them if requested.

And, I've have had one blogger request that his blog be removed from my list. Although he is part of 'the family', he does not discuss that aspect of his life on his blog, which is read by his real family and friends. And, no, I'm not going to reveal who it is.

Most blogs keep the same name as they were initially created - but a few blogs have changed names over time. And a couple of blogs have presented a real challenge keeping up with the name changes - you know who you are :)

So, where do I stand right now at this point in time? There are 148 family blogs which breaks down as follows:

• 3 blogs have been added in the last month
  
• 87 blogs which have been updated in 2008
• 32 blogs are retired (not updated in 2008)
  
• 21 have been deleted
• 5 were public and have switched to private

Additionally, I've started including "video blogs" which are links to YouTube users who have vlogs. At present, there are 6 video blogs, although, one of them (MorMenLikeMe) has multiple users contributing to it.

I don't really know what the point of this blog post is. So, I'm going to stop typing now.