A MormonsInNarnia update...
Tomorrow is D-day for the blog…or so Tumblr has said. I have been in many conversations with other Tumblr bloggers and we are all having a difficult time re-homing our blogs on a new platform. For me, Tumblr provided a place to manage the content that was shown to you, the follower. Some follwers of the blog saw this as censorship and wanted to freely post whatever they submitted, I fought against that. When Craigslist died, I saw a flood of hookup requests come to the MIN blog. I kept them off the site, to maintain a sense of community and purpose. As you can imagine, some of the content submitted to the Narnia blog was neither appropriate to its mission nor supported by my personal beliefs. I have looked into many new replacement platforms, Twitter, Reddit and others. Unfortunately, they are all open platforms that allow users to cross post, monetize and add photos, pics and other content that doesn’t flow well with what I wanted to see in Narnia. There is an opportunity to continue MormonsInNarnia on those platforms, but it would require almost constant moderation, a task I just can’t commit to.
As I mentioned before, I have been developing another outreach program for closeted and openly out men like you. This new platform is the next step to Narnia--minus the user submitted photos. We will be featuring podcasts, interviews, panel discussions, coming out stories and other sources of help and positive support. With a dedicated website, YouTube channel, iTunes Podcast, Facebook page and other venues, you will be able to discreetly and freely access the information. This project has been under construction for a number of months, but it isn’t ready yet. Unfortunately, we were surprised by the December 17th Tumblr decision and have been working even harder to launch it as quickly as possible.
So, what is the fate of MormonsInNarnia? At this point, without a viable platform, we have backed up and saved an archived copy of the blog. In the future we can look at options that will allow us to publish the archived blog and its previous posts, without building new user submission. This seems like the most logical step in light of the very few options we have. I think some additional time will allow developers the chance to create some options that aren’t currently available to the us as Tumblr bloggers.
Coming up next month (January 2019) we will be launching our new platform. If you’d like to get updates and stay informed, send me an email and I will keep you up to date. [email protected] . I don’t care if you use a real or fake email address to contact me. Honestly, I don’t care. I care more about you finding connection, resources and sense of community you so desperately need. I am not going to share or “out” you. As always, I just want to arm you with good information and help you to see that you’re noticed, you’re not alone, and there are many people out there just like you.
It’s been a wild, fun and informative three years! Thanks for making MormonsInNarnia the success it was. Your stories, your progress and your desire to be authentic have literally changed lives. I can’t count the number of times I have heard people use Narnia in a sentence in relation to their sexuality. It makes me smile—every time! You have been part of a network of game changers. :)
You are good, and I want to continue to be a positive influence in your journey.
Here’s to chapter two.
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