The great T&S scavenger hunt (a.k.a. “Outsourcing”) *UPDATED

1. Each link in the current “Abbreviated link list” that points to an outdated URL: 4 points. (Please list correct URL in your comment).

2. Each link in the Abbreviated Link List that is completely defunct: 6 points.

2a. Each link in the Abbreviated Link List that has not been updated in at least 6 months: 3 points.

3. Each link in the full blogroll (located at the bottom of the page) that points to an outdated URL: 2 points. (Please list correct URL).

4. Each link in the full blogroll that is completely defunct: 3 points.

4a. Each link in the full blogroll that has not been updated in at least 6 months: 2 points.

5. Each blog listed at ldsblogs.org but not on the T&S blogroll anywhere: 3 points.

6. Each additional LDS-related blog that we should add, but haven’t yet: 0-4 points, based on judges’ assessment.

Please post your responses in comments.

Only the first commenter to name a link will receive credit for it. So, comment fast if you want the points. (Individual comments are a good idea — don’t save them all up, or you might be pre-empted.)

Winners to be announced in, um, a few days.

87 comments for “The great T&S scavenger hunt (a.k.a. “Outsourcing”) *UPDATED

  1. Steve,

    I thought you dropped your blogroll cause the guy who managed it left for greener pastures.

    Kim,

    Good question. Hmm — 2 points for ya.

    Liz,

    Good catch. At 4 points, you take an early lead.

    BIV,

    Good catch, 3 points for you. And agreed, it’s dismaying.

  2. Midwest Bloggin Does not seem to be active.
    Latter Day Bloghas not been unupdated for a while
    KZion Radio Blog has also not been updated
    Job 21:3 is a few years unupdated
    John Bytheway’s blog hasn’t been updated for a few years
    Bloggernacle Times is dead
    Popcorn Popping is dead
    Don’t Let’s Start appears to be dead as well
    Chief Wiggles appears to have gone the way of all the world.
    All this and I barely even looked.

    Whatever happened to the Banner of Heaven?

  3. p.s. William Morris would argue that Popcorn Popping isn’t dead. I might argue that too if I had the energy.

    and Kaimi, I think the Baron of Deseret has moved on, making his link obsolete. Plus I think you have the Mormon Wasp URL wrong (should be http://mormonwasp.wordpress.com/)

  4. Useful stuff so far, all. I’m updating some links now. Many hands make light work.

    Feel free to continue . . .

  5. Are these “Whose Line is it Anyway” points? Did Sarah just qualify to sit behind the desk?

  6. I don’t understand Ray’s comment, but I don’t watch that show. I just enjoy this sort of vaguely mundane work — I weed my blogroll with enthusiasm when I sit down to do it.

    http://gednet.com/blog/ (“Learning to Fly” under Law & Politics) gave me a 404 error.

  7. Okay, I’ve done the entire blog section of your link list, either by clicking on it tonight or clicking on it recently enough through my own reading that I know it’s active (e.g. Mormanity.) Note that in at least one case it appears that the same blog is linked to in the abbreviated link list and in the full blogroll, and while the one in the full blogroll is wrong, the one on the shorter list is correct (The Iron Rod appears to be an example of this, the Spinozist Mormon is definitely an example of this.)

    LDS Liberation Front is another special case: I referenced the link that was in the full blogroll in comment #47, but the one that’s in the short link list, http://ldsliberationfront.net/, hasn’t been updated since March.

    A Bird’s Eye View, in the abbreviated link list, has moved from http://abev.blogs.com/ to http://abev.wordpress.com/.

    Do you guys want people to look at your “Other Links” list, too?

  8. Did I miss something? Is this a paid gig? *grin*

    Seriously, Sarah, this is impressive. I feel like I do when I see my father-in-law’s genealogical research – awestruck and slightly ashamed – and incredulous.

  9. Sarah, you rock. I’m making updates from your comments, and our blogroll is looking better than it has for years.

    You’re welcome to look at the Other Links, too. You’ve already done an incredible job on the blogroll — thanks again.

  10. Marta – yes, at M*. Though I can never come up with something interesting to write. (Geoff et al: if you guys want me to do this there I can, but I don’t know how to edit our sidebar!)

    Curtis – I find this sort of thing vaguely enjoyable. It might not surprise you to learn that I like genealogy, too; before she went to law school, my mom was effectively a full-time genealogist. The stake has made her the official genealogy cheerleader: part of my assignment package while she homeschooled me was to help her with her research. Now I help her with her law firm in exchange for a rent-free lifestyle. ^_^

    I figured I’d start with the extra links list while you guys decide whether you want it checked or not.

    http://www.nd.edu/~rpotter/element4.html (“Element” under Church-Related Sites) — defaults to the ND.edu main page.

    http://www.cgu.edu/pages/1825.asp is the right url, but you’re currently making it go to “http://timesandseasons.org/Claremont%20Program%20on%20Mormonism” which I think is just an HTML error.

    http://mormonlit.lib.byu.edu/ appears to be changing its name slightly to “Mormon Literature and Creative Arts”

  11. http://www.aml-online.org/list/subscribe.html/ goes to a 404 error, because you put a “/” after the .html

    http://goodoman.blogspot.com/2002_11_17_goodoman_archive.html#84955806/ generates a freaky Blogger error page, and the main URL (http://goodoman.blogspot.com/) seems to be messed up, too.

    http://www.nd.edu/~rpotter/ldsphil.html/ redirects to the ND.edu main page

    http://makephpbb.com/phpbb/?mforum=lds goes to a 404 error

    The FAIR message board has been discontinued to focus on http://www.fairwiki.org; the message board function has been replaced by http://www.mormonapologetics.org/.

    It might be temporary, but I can’t reach the server at http://www.lds-women.com/.

  12. I think I may be getting flagged as a spammer. I wouldn’t be surprised. If my last comment doesn’t come through, I have it saved in a .txt file.

    http://www.mindlessfun.com/LDS/ is gone, there’s stupid advertising there now.

    Mormon Monastery (http://www.mormonmonastery.org/category/home-page/) hasn’t been updated in over a year. You’ve also got two different links, right next to each other, which both go there.

    You made your Christianity Today link go to a specific article from 2003 (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/decemberweb-only/12-15-51.0.html)

  13. Hah, my post between 10:50 and 11:08 HAS been eaten. Like I said, I still have it if the T&S engine doesn’t have it stuck somewhere.

    http://aurochsandangels.typepad.com/ Demands a password for access.

    http://christusvictor.blogspot.com/ hasn’t been updated since 2005

    http://hugoboy.typepad.com/hugo_schwyzer/ has moved to http://hugoschwyzer.net/

    http://protocols.blogspot.com/ has dissolved, and its authors have all gone off to (several) different individual blogs.

    http://www.religionnewsblog.com/ works, but I wanted to just mention that it’s a not-very-kind anti-cult site.

    I have now clicked on all the links in the “Other Links” section, except the ones that I visit often enough that, well, I just don’t expect not to be there (e.g. Beliefnet.)

  14. I found one of yours in the Akismet filter, and let it free.

    And I’m happy to hear that we’re not getting you in trouble with your mother. :)

  15. When we were first kicking around the idea of starting a blog, we were pretty keen on the name ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’ And then we discovered that some gentiles of the jewish persuasion had already taken the name. How dare they go under!

  16. Woot! My missing post has returned!

    Some other (non-bloggy) link suggestions:

    — a few of the bigger LDS related things on Facebook, e.g.:
    http://osu.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2203994362 (the only group with the exact name of the Church spelled correctly, has tons of members)
    http://apps.facebook.com/ldsscriptures&sid=4969073411 (the only popular LDS application, serves up photos of your LDS friends and random scriptures)

    — the Church music webpage (http://lds.org/music)

    — HymnWiki (http://hymnwiki.org)

    — Mormon Fortress (http://www.mormonfortress.com/)

    — Mormon Testimonies (http://www.mormontestimonies.org/)

    — a single category for the various aggregators, to include new ones not already indexed (http://www.sustaind.org/, for instance, won’t work if people don’t actually use it.)

    (I also think there are some better general “what is this religion” websites out there than the ones you’ve got for the individual denominations: I’m sure there are better “UU 101” sites than UUA.org, for non-UUs — http://www.uunashua.org/100quest.shtml comes to mind right away.)

  17. Okay, I think I’m done for now. Somehow I’m in the mood to key ISBNs into my LibraryThing account… weird how hypnotic this kind of work is.

  18. You’re awesome, Sarah. This is very helpful. I’ll see what kind of fabulous prizes we can shake up.

  19. No problem, Kaimi. Like I said, I sort of enjoy this kind of activity. Makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something with my day.

  20. Pardon the interruption Sarah- if Kaimi is giving away freebies, l’d like one, maybe at the bottom? Could you put in a good word for me? Thanks!
    dandelionmama.wordpress.com

  21. Connor, thank you for your comment #21. I didn’t know about that Firefox extension and I think it could come in extremely handy.

  22. I checked out that link checker Firefox plugin (linked by Connor in comment #21) and it should be noted that it processes all the links on a page one by one. It doesn’t just check our blogroll – it checks every single link that appears on the page anywhere. Since blogs have links all over the place, you can sit there and watch as the plugin highlights the links one by one – turning the good links green and the bad links grey or red.

    You have to give it a few minutes to go through all the links – but it’s much quicker than doing the work manually.

    I’m surprised there isn’t a WordPress plugin that does this sort of thing.

  23. The extension doesn’t do everything Kaimi was looking for (which is why I didn’t really bother with it yesterday — I’d still have to check the overwhelming majority of links by hand, because they were green but hadn’t been updated, or were replaced by advertising, or demanding a password, or whatever.) It marked more than half the links I flagged as “green.”

    Oh, and the grey links aren’t bad — they’re skipped. Running it on this page right now gives M* dozens of grey links, because it already checked M* on my first comment. And a lot of the non-updated blogs are greyed out on the second instance, because I included their URLs in my comments yesterday.

    It’s a good tool, but it only goes after the truly dead stuff.

  24. Byteline (http://byteline.blogspot.com) by Alma Allred is very interesting. He has lately been running a multi-part history of the fundamentalist sects and schisms, with many fascinating details from his personal experiences. I don’t believe it is currently in your list.

  25. The link in the right sidebar to your Truth Laid Bear ranking has an extra quote mark in the link that breaks it. While editing the text to say “Mormon Marsupial” was clever, it makes the information inaccurate. You’re listed at the bottom of the page as a “large mammal”. Perhaps you’ve left your “marauding marsupial” days behind you for good. :)

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