evolution of the experiment

Click "Read More..." to see some politicaLDS updates; scroll down to read lots of interesting posts about politics.

Hi folks! Just finished reading through all the Proposition 8 and Sarah Palin posts and boy! aren't things hot around here? The site has been successful lately, in that we've had frequent posts, regular, (mostly) civil discussion, and lots of learning. I know I've had my eyes opened on several occasions. A few notes I'd like to make:

Our demographics

Our goal is to be equally stacked on both sides; we are liberal-heavy right now (yes, there are four bloggers on each side, but posting frequency varies highly). I always imagined I'd have the opposite problem and struggle to find crazy liberals such as myself, but who knows? Of course, we need to fix this. If you are a conservative Latter-day Saint and you are interested in being a regular blogger, please e-mail me (mike@politicaLDS.com). I would appreciate it if you would include a snippet (or even a full blog post) of something you've written that illustrates your writing style and political identity. Does this sound like a job application or what? Ridiculous!) Regulars try to post, on average, once every two weeks. There's no pay other than the gratitude of your readers! And it's fun! C'mon, you know you want to!

Offensive comments

Any time I receive a request from a blog author to remove a comment perceived to be appropriate, I will do it, trusting our bloggers to follow the guidelines posted in the blog's initial post:

What this isn't:

* A place for bickering;
* A place for bashing of any religion;
* A place for personal attacks.

If you encounter a comment that you find to be offensive, please notify one of us (our e-mail addresses are on the front page). Please note that there are administrators with comment-deletion capabilities on both sides of the political spectrum to avoid the appearance of evil. :) Also, expect that a regular commenter who gets a little overheated is probably significantly less likely to be deleted than a first-time poster (if that doesn't sit well with you, become a regular commenter!).

Non-member participation

Long story short, there's been lots of it, and I like it. One of the initial purposes of the site was to illustrate to those outside the LDS community that we can be a diverse group, and I think we've proved it and will continue to do so. Some non-members have really been an integral part of this community.

All the blog authors are Latter-day Saints, and so it will remain. As a result, the blogs are going to reflect opinions and concerns pertaining to Latter-day Saints and LDS life, so the comment threads are naturally going to have - at the least - religious overtones. What the site is not, particularly, is a good place for those who are interested in learning about the Church outside the political sphere. Frankly, it's too debatey a place for that. For those investigators, I recommend this official Church site, this site (one of my personal favorites), or any other number of Internet resources. Or e-mail me or other blog author.

Post content

If you have any ideas for issues you'd like to see discussed, or have authored a post you'd like to contribute as a guest (this can include non-members), please e-mail me.

And finally...

If you have any suggestions, comments, or items for discussion about the site and the way we do things, please leave a comment below, or e-mail me. Thanks for reading!