I've sent many of you an email on this but it bears repeating. Carnival of the Liberals needs hosts for this year. If you have a liberal blog, do it. No blog is too small and actually, smaller blogs can get some traffic, attention, linky love, and general street cred linking ten blogs of the 23 or so that will be submitted to you. It's not difficult at all. Please sign up for a date and do it. And thanks.
UPDATE: Chris in Seattle asks specifically what is involved. Here is my experience with it:
You sign up for a specific date to run your carnival. Carnivals run every two weeks, usually on Wednesdays but sometimes carnivals are late** due to life interfering with blogging (never happens at MY house but wev).
Starting two weeks before your date you will receive emails with links to posts that people have submitted to the carnival. My understanding is that Leo, the guy coordinating all of this, would like to see more themed or issue oriented carnivals but that is up to you as host. If your blog is about Iraq stuff you could have a peace carnival of the liberals, for instance.
At some point before the date of the carnival you read all these great posts that have been sent to you. The cool part of the carnival is that this carnival thing has a cut and paste post with all the links to all the submissions for you to start with. You have to pick ten posts, and trust me narrowing it down is the hardest part of the whole exercise.
You then cut and paste the post into your post window and customize it, deleting all the links but the ten you selected and prettifying the post, etc. I went whole hog and did a limerick version for COTL 33. I suspect, though I haven't been told, that Carnival of the Liberals is "English Only" so don't try to write it in Messican, we'll put up a wall around you.
**You actually get bonus points for posting your carnival on time. Really.
What all is involved? I clicked on the link there, but it didn't tell me a lot. But hey, traffic, street cred and linky love all sound good to me.
ReplyDeleteThanks for mentioning Carnival of the Liberals! To answer the question of what's involved, it's not that hard. Really! In fact, it's fun! I promise.
ReplyDeleteMore specifically, CotL runs on a biweekly schedule. The host for each edition receives all the submissions for their edition via e-mail. Then the host chooses what they consider the ten best or their top ten favorites of all the submissions received.
On the day of their edition the host creates a blog post linking to those ten posts they chose. While it's certainly acceptable to just Posts links to the the posts it's more entertaining for the readers and more fun to get a little creative. Browse through some of the back editions of CotL for some ideas. That's really all there is to it beyond including some basic information like when the next Carnival of the Liberals happens and where it can be found.
You can read some more of my thoughts about Carnival of the Liberals here but the basic idea is to simply create a bi-weekly magazine showcasing the best liberal blogging. I prefer a good mix of larger and smaller blogs because part of the goal here is to introduce people to some great blogs they might not ordinarily have found, as well as a little bit of community building.
As for more themed editions, it is something I'd like to see. Whether or not it's practical is another question. If you're going to do a themed edition, then it's best to plan it far in advance (at least a couple of months) so we can let people know what they should be sending in.
What is the time obligation, Blue Gal?
ReplyDeleteI'm all for it, but right now I'm so busy I hardly have time to have my appendix out.
long enough to read over between 23 and 33 posts and pick ten and then format a post with links, the html for which is already provided...
ReplyDeleteprobably about two hours give or take, depending on how creative you get.
Between two and three hours sounds about right to me too. It really depends on the number of submissions for your edition. Sometimes we get upwards of 50-60 posts but that's not too often (usually only when a really well-known blogger like Shakespeare's Sister or Pharyngula is hosting). Normally we only see 20-30 submissions.
ReplyDeleteWhen I host, the process I use is to skim each submission as they come in and right then and there I make a decision as to whether or not I want to give it further consideration. Then the night before I fully read the remaining submissions and sort them into three piles as I go ("Definitely!", "Maybe...", and "Not what I'm looking for.")
When I end up I usually have 7 or 8 posts in the "Definitely!" category and then I pick a couple from the "Maybe..." category. Sometimes though you come across a situation where all the posts are fantastic and then you have to spend some extra time making your choices but that doesn't happen too often. As much as I brag about the quality of the posts submitted each time (and there are many to brag about), it's not uncommon for about 1/3 of them to be short 1 paragraph blurbs or mentions of posts from other blogs that don't really add anything to the discussion. Oh, and lately we've been getting Paultard spam but I strongly suspect that will disappear very soon (if it hasn't already).
It took a little digging on the website to figure out what to do, but it sounds great!!!
ReplyDeleteI signed up.
:)
Thanks for the info!
I like the blog panties.
ReplyDeleteI penned a rant for VD (a great abbreviation!), myself.
But yeah, I'm up for some Carnival luv.
i signed up for (preferentially) me & Mrs. Other's wedding anniversary day. we'll see how things go.
ReplyDeleteguess i need to start writing some things for this....who knew there'd be an essay question to the blogging test? ;-)