This past Sunday I learned Belghast, the person who initiated Blaugust more than 10 years ago, passed away on 02 July 2026. Last year was my first time participating in Blaugust. I was on the fence so far as to whether I will participate this year or not. But it is decided now, I will participate this year too. I would be participating to honour the memory of Belghast.
From my experience participating last year, I can wholeheartedly say that the Blaugust community is one of the best online communities I have ever seen. Thank you Belghast for creating such a welcoming space, I have met literally zero toxic people in here. It is in the blaugust discord that I found a post mentioning that Belghast passed away. From another blog post (by a close friend of Bel) I found out the circumstances and how he was still writing and sharing blog posts till his last day.
So I have come this far and not introduced what Blaugust is. To keep it brief, Blaugust is a month-long event where people write to their blogs. There are some optional challenges and badges to go along if you complete any of them. But at its core it is celebrating independent blogs and writing by humans for humans. If you want to read a more detailed version then I would point you to a fellow blaugustan.
In my reflection post about Blaugust 2025 I mentioned that I won't be targeting the 31 posts again. When I heard of Bel's passing, I initially thought that I would attempt the 31 posts again in honour of Bel's memory. But realised that a more appropriate way would be to rather focus more on the community than on individual blog post targets. So, this year I will be focusing on the Community Builder Edition (or whatever is equivalent this time around) of Blaugust for this year.
From last year I liked Nik's weekly retrospectives (specimens first, second, third and fourth) on which posts he liked. I think I might try that this time around.
