I really didn’t deserve to win but people like BiV on Hieing to Kolob should have been at least on the ticket for best new blog or best small blog. I was upset about there being no write-in ballots or I would have nominated a few people especially small individual bloggers. I don’t see how sites with ten bloggers and hundred of thousands of hits qualified as best small blog. There should have been a category called best individual small blog. Us little guys were left out. Even the academy awards have best foreign film or best documentary. I have only been blogging for six months even if my wife has been around a couple of years. I am just learning the ropes. My wife and I have totally separate blog lives. I was told by her last year any one could nominate. I liked it better than the current flawed process where even nominators candidates nominations weren’t put on the ballot.

I have to say that trash can guy held to his standards but when he is biases against you calling you bts** crazy than the process is flawed. Everyone should have had a chance that is nominated for whatever reason. No one has to vote for you just because you are on the ballot.

I work hard on my blog spending hours researching, responding to any comments. I even figured out how to email every Mormon GA and sent them an email to read my blog. A few actually started doing that. Try having a few of them reading your blog on a regular basis. You have to have ice water in your veins. I have never had a good experience with them ever. But I wanted them to think including my former mission president M. Russell Ballard. I will probably even email him if he wins a niblet.

The majority of my traffic comes from Goggle searches. I am in the process of starting my own aggregator which will take me several weeks to figure out but being very high tech as a university library administrator I am going to do it even if I have to pay someone a thousand bucks to do it for me. When I do it will be for the little Mormon bloggers. But I won’t exclude anyone. Being a librarian who adheres to the ALA Bill of Rights, I won’t knock anyone off for anything other than if they violate the laws of the land which is either porn or harassment including acts of terrorism. Even as a conservative it is better to know what people really think. How else can you respond to it.

I wouldn’t have contemplated this extreme measure had I not been knocked off an aggregator this week myself. I feel true liberals and conservatives don’t have much inclusion on the bloggernacle since we are considered too different. My former mission president M. Russell Ballard did something good when he talked about the new media unfortunately there is a group that have their own agendas.

When you deal with one topic like mormon missionary work you have to tackle hard issues including missionary depression, masturbation, to name a couple topics. I throw in my personal church history stories like a diary so my eight children and others can see Joe Mormon even has a place. The real censorship comes not from the GAs but from pseudo-intellectual apologetic Mormons who make the blogsphere safe from alternate viewpoints to their own. They control for the most part the aggregators and can make or break your blog. They are entitled to do what they want since they hold all the cards but we need to strike a blow for liberty by expressing ourselves. For the most part they serve a useful purpose but in other regards why should they practice censorship.

I handled masturbation not because someone else did it and I knew it was good for a thousand hits which it was. I tackled it because I knew it was an issue for missionaries. It was an issue thirty years ago and it is an issue today. If I feel it there are a lot of issues including finding more missionary couples. I am going to write about it and whatever I think is an issue. I even begged to be allowed back on to help some mission president but was told “mellow out.” I will see if they will let me back when the offending post has run its course.

I don’t always agreed with commenters to many of my posts let alone my own wife’s comments but I like the diversity of thought. If you are going to allow comments you have to consider what is said. Nick has even illuminated me on a point or two in the past. It is part of the academic process for the free exchange of ideas. The tenure process in universities has to allow for free expression or most of us wouldn’t have jobs. Especially not me I write for K-8 educators about other cultures and considering I’m a middle aged white guy that is interesting. I only publish in one journal the Multicultural Review. Conservatives and liberals alike should have a chance rather than the middle of the roaders who are trying to control the bloggernacle for the niblets and to be on the aggregators.

I agree with a lot you say by your rejection of the niblets. My wife thinks they are great and thinks they show how appreciated you are. Personally I think they are stupid and create dissension since there are the haves and have nots. If anyone deserved an award for devotion to the Mormon blogsphere then my wife did. Unfortunately I am one of the few that recognizes this and they don’t give an award for that. Nick should have been nominated as a best commenter. He, Kevin Barney and my wife seem to read everything and have something to say. Not to mention it drives hits to your site when you comment. My wife BiV had 42,000 hits for a single blog with no help from her permablogger friends. She should have been nominated for best small blog not blogs with ten

She actually tried out a couple of times as a permablogger and wasn’t invited to the party. I believe she deserved being nominated for a niblet in the small blog area. She didn’t self-nominate herself for the award she deserved. I think the overseer controlled the ballot. One person with a slight bit of help from the secret panel really shaped the ballot. There is never any real fairness when you vote for anything.

Unfortunately there was no place when I voted to do a write-in or I would have nominated a few others I had in mind. I don’t agree with most things BiV says but she makes me think and reexam my conservative viewpoints as a result I thought she deserved nomination. I would have also nominated John Dehlin’s Mormon Stories site for its candid and insightful interview with Ted Lyon, a former mission president who rejected the notion of baptizing for numbers sake. You would think a mega-site with two million hits would be on the ballot.

I guess his tussle with the bloggernacle officials and starting his own aggregator made him unpopular. I earned my own badge of honor this week when I was booted for tackling in a conservatively doctrinal way a taboo topic. They told me be patient we might let you back. It is funny how a guy can do an anal blog on how old the prophet looks which is demeaning to the man and another guy takes a doctrinal position on a sensitive issue and gets the boot. Censorship is alive and well in both the niblets and the mormon blogsphere. It has nothing to do with PR. It has to do with control.

Of course, this second comment from a non-perma-blogger locks you up as a front-runner next year. :-)

Congratulations!