1.

personal finance advice
July 20th, 2006 at 8:08 pm

I came against the same frustrations and stopped doing most carnivals awhile ago. I think one thing that may sound harsh, but may make carnivals better is that people who submit only announce carnivals on their website when effort has actually been put into making it a quality carnival.

2.

J.D. @ Get Rich Slowly
July 20th, 2006 at 9:13 pm

Great Post, Nick.

I’m new to the whole carnival thing, and so far I don’t understand what the fuss is. They don’t generate much traffic for those participating (maybe it’s different for the hosts). Very few present the content in any meaninful way. (In fact, I’m willing to wager that most hosts never read the submissions.) It’s just a way to game the search engines.

Some hosts do put effort into it. Yours is a great example, Nick. But these are rare exceptions.

My recommendations would be:

* The hosts should read the entries!
* Not every entry should be published!
* The host should explain something about each entry!

I participate in carnivals when I remember, but it’s not a priority. They seriously just seem like attempts to trade links. And if that’s what people want to do, then why not trade links?

3.

jim
July 20th, 2006 at 9:39 pm

First, thank you for the compliment, I’m glad you liked the image of an actual carnival… that was a treat to do. Second, I’m with you on every count with respect to Carnivals. Listing them just seems a little weak, at the very least I think someone should do what Jeff did and do a quote. I’ve been guilty of just putting up a list but I put a little quirky blurb along with it so it’s not a straight cut and paste from the Conservative Cat email.

4.

Jonathan
July 20th, 2006 at 10:19 pm

I blogged about this before too, but I’ve since come to accept it. It is what it is – a list of links. I skim it, read only what catches my eye, and move on.

I’m currently not on any list to host any Carnival myself, simply because I’m not willing to spend an entire Sunday evening to put a good one together.

5.

ricemutt
July 21st, 2006 at 12:55 pm

I agree with you and everyone here, for the most part. I’ve only hosted one carnival (C of Investing two weeks ago), and I’m due to host F of Frugality in November, so I’ll keep these thoughts in mind.

Honestly, as a complete newbie to hosting carnivals, I wasn’t sure what leeway I had to work with. I didn’t include one submission that was completely unrelated to investing, but I didn’t much care for a couple of them that didn’t present (in my opinion) any interesting content at all.

It would help if we had some clearer guidelines for hosts, like “be choosy in accepting every submission” or “feel free to leave out poorly-written articles”. For people who are new to blogging/carnivals, it can be intimidating to decide not to include X because it was poorly written, or Y because it was included in three other finance carnivals this same week, especially if X and Y are older, more established blogs than yours. (Of course, the solving the latter problem requires some coordination of efforts across carnival hosts, too.)

I did read every submission and tagged each one with relevant keywords and a brief explanation of what the article was about, instead of just cutting and pasting. I also listed them in their categories in order of my opinion of the usefulness of their content, though I didn’t say that explicitly.

Just my thoughts. I don’t claim to be able to compare to the amazing work you and others have done in the past but just wanted to give a newcomer’s perspective.

6.

Him
July 21st, 2006 at 3:34 pm

Haikus. Lot’s of ‘em. As per my Carnival of Debt Reduction a few weeks back.

7.

Trent
July 22nd, 2006 at 6:27 pm

Nick (and others)

At the risk of overpromising, I encourage you to submit to this week’s Carnival of Investing. Hopefully I’ll make it worth your while.

8.

mbhunter
July 23rd, 2006 at 11:29 pm

Nice discussion.

The carnivals I’ve hosted mostly fall in the OK category, probably. Nothing great, but nothing excessively lazy either.

Hosting a carnival does get you some extra traffic regardless of quality. Having said that, the amount of residual traffic you get after the week is over will depend a lot on the quality. The fantastic ones will be linked to long after they’re posted initially (like in the present post). The really bad ones will be remembered too (maybe you can recall a really poorly done Carnival of Personal Finance). And the average ones are just there.

One pressure in putting up a fantastic carnival is that you’re getting many of your posts the night or two before, so the design of the carnival has to be such that you can put it together quickly.

Anyway … here’s a question whose answer is implied in the original post:

Does a plain carnival generate less traffic for the submitters than a great one?

I don’t think the answer is clear. (Has anyone measured this in some way?) A successful carnival is more than just a polished look, clever design, gimmick, superhuman effort, etc. At the end of the day, the successful ones will be the ones that drive the most traffic to the posts in the carnival. I think the plain vanilla carnivals might actually be better than ones with a lot of commentary by the host. If the host gives away the punch line for a post, there’s no reason for visitors to read the post for themselves!

It’s for this reason that I’m not against lists of links. (Though I probably could categorize the links in my future carnivals.) Short “so-and-so posts lah-dee-dah at bloggy-blog” or embellishments on this theme reveal none of the content of the post to the reader — which encourages them to read the article if it interests them. Mission accomplished, as far as I’m concerned. If I entertain or wow people, great. But if I do it at the expense of the posters, then I’ve done them a disservice.

9.

Alaskan Mukluks
September 16th, 2010 at 12:40 am

Despite the age of these articles I still find them to be relevant and highly entertaining

10.

jocu-RI cu Masini
September 3rd, 2011 at 12:44 pm

You are the funniest man alive dude, I realy like you

11.

jocu-RI cu Masini
October 2nd, 2011 at 8:31 am

I like to read your posts because of those great pictures you draw

12.

jocu-RI cu Masini
November 1st, 2011 at 10:42 am

I can’t stop laughing at your great jokes man and your drawings are awesome too

13.

jocu-RI cu Masini
December 1st, 2011 at 5:27 am

Amazing man, how do you come up with this stories

14.

jocu-RI cu Masini
December 1st, 2011 at 5:58 am

I wish I had a sense of humor like your,great stuff dude!

15.

jocu-RI cu Masini
January 3rd, 2012 at 9:45 am

Great article as usual, I know that this is a problem for everybody but I still can’t stop laughing

16.

replica jewelry
January 26th, 2012 at 7:03 am

Great Site, your plugins are very useful and save me a tonne of time.olfug

17.

Microsoft outlook 2010
January 28th, 2012 at 10:24 pm

Valuable information ..I am delighted to read this article..thank you for giving us this useful information. Great walk-through. I value this post.

18.

jocu-RI cu Masini
March 9th, 2012 at 6:01 am

So, how are you writing all this, how do you find your inspiration?

19.

دردشة عراقية
September 13th, 2012 at 8:45 am

بعض الوظائف الأخرى التي لا يمكن شغلها بسهولة مع رحلة سريعة إلى كلية الفنون الأدائية المحلية

20.

دردشة عراقية رومانسية
September 15th, 2012 at 5:48 pm

thank you a lot’s man ilove your site <3
I would love to come back in a regular basis so post more of the subject!!! sorry about my english

دردشة عراقية