The Carnival of Personal Finance is up at MyMoneyBlog. If you’re interested in participating or hosting, more information is here and next week’s host is Five Cent Nickel.
There’s a lot of discussion surrounding the Carnival these days. Much of it stems from the fact that the universe (specifically, the personal finance blogging universe) is expanding. How do you host a Carnival when there are sometimes more than fifty submissions? People are looking to create a “rule.” Although I don’t really want to, since I kind of initiated the Carnival of Personal Finance, I guess I’ll say a few things.
I’ve always maintained that it’s up to the host for the week, but I like to see as many submission included as possible. It’s becoming a lot of work to host a Carnival, so perhaps those who are unprepared for the time and effort needed shouldn’t volunteer to host. Yes, there are many submissions that aren’t top quality, most notably mine. Many subpar submissions — by those looking for a quick traffic bump — will disappear as the hosts realize Carnivals don’t drive as much traffic as they once did because:
1. There are so many Carnivals related to personal finance now,
2. Instapundit doesn’t link to them, and
3. The number of bloggers is growing faster than the number of non-blogging readers.
If you read other Carnivals in other genres, you’ll find that many others manage a large number of submissions. Take a look at a recent Carnival of Education as an example. (It is interesting to note there is no “Carnival of Elementary School Education” or “Carnival of Standardized Testing” — one general Carnival seems to be sufficient.) The most recent Carnival of Cats has more submissions than the Carnival of Personal Finance ever had — people love to blog about their cats. (Again, no “Carnival of Tabbies” or “Carnival of Cat Food for Older Cats.”)
Just to be clear, I’m okay with the other Carnivals in the pfblogging world. The capacity is there, and no one’s getting the short end of the shaft, so it’s all good. If things were to get too crowded, I’d probably drop the CoPF first and let someone else manage it. Now back to the topic…
There’s no one right way to host. Personally, I liked when someone sorted the submissions by word count and listed the longest entries at the top of the post. I heartily agree with the host picking out his or her favorites as “editor’s choice” submissions, as well.
Think about real-life Carnivals. They’re messy, crazy, fun, and those games are usually scams. People go to have a good time, get a taste of a lot of different foods, and go on a number of different rides. I think that’s the spirit that a blog Carnival should take. Let’s lighten up about it.
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