Sour Duck’s Carnival Host Notes: Meta-Issues (Part III)

This post is one of a series outlining my experience hosting Issue 3 of The Carnival of Feminists.

These documents are informally written and entirely voluntary.

It is hoped that they will aid future and potential hosts in their Carnival project.

Please see the introduction for further details.

Part III - Contents

1. Why do you want to host?


2. My criteria


3. To clique or not to click, that is the question.


4. Übercarnivals and jumping through hoops


5. Wolf in sheep’s clothing blogs


6. What constitutes a blog?


1. problems of definition


2. an ironic twist…
7. Natalie Bennett

I. Why do you want to host?

Why do you want to volunteer to host a carnival?

Your reasons will probably reveal a mixture of altruistic and egocentric motivations. There’s nothing wrong in this! Harnessing these selfish and unselfish drives can lead to some of the most inventive and original work. In fact, with regards to carnivals, the potent mix of these incentives is undoubtedly what keeps people raising their hands to volunteer as hosts.

Among the possible self-interested benefits of hosting a carnival are:

1. an increase in links to your blog
2. a higher readership (at least, initially)
3. a more public profile
4. a modicum of prestige, dependent upon the carnival’s overall reputation and your performance as host.

More altruistic motivations and benefits include:

1. expanding other’s blog-reading habits
2. contributing to your blog community by performing a needed service.

Each host has their own temperament, of course, but I would venture to say if you are not just a little bit nervous or doubtful about hosting a carnival, you may not be a suitable host. There should be at least some pressure on you to produce a good—if not great—issue. Some of that pressure comes from your awareness that many eyes will fall on your work.

II. My criteria

While formulating my issue (at the very earliest stages), I was surprised to find my initial ideas already articulated by Living the Scientific Life:

As I mentioned earlier, I developed several minor goals of my own for this issue of [Tangled Bank]. These goals were to encourage contributions from female bloggers, to seek contributions from “new voices” and, because blogging is a global enterprise, I wanted to foster a more international flavor by encouraging contributions from “non-Americans”.

My own goals for The Carnival of Feminists issue I hosted were:

1. To prioritize blogs that had not appeared in previous issues of the Carnival;
2. To prioritize non-Western culture blogs;
3. To favor low-traffic blogs and new bloggers;
4. To disrupt any clique-like feel that had been emerging in The Carnival of Feminists.

Additionally, all of the above goals had the following top-level restriction:

…but not at the expense of quality of content

The content had to be there.

Regarding popular, “big-time” feminist blogs

I made an exceptions for: topical issues; posts on items that generated much discussion in the feminist blogosphere; and in instances where an issue was comprehensively (and ambitiously) addressed by one blogger.

This approach suited my particular goals. Other hosts can—and should—link freely to a pool of big-time feminist bloggers (while taking care to introduce new voices).

III. To clique or not to click, that is the question.

4. To disrupt any clique-like feel that had been emerging in The Carnival of Feminists.

This was challenging goal, as I felt conflicted at first.

On the one hand, I was keen to include some of my favorite feminist blogs that hadn’t appeared in previous issues of The Carnival of Feminists. On the other hand, if I included them, wasn’t I just trading one clique for another? (In this case, my own.)

And yet, to ask hosts not to indulge in any clique-like behavior at all seemed unlikely. Afterall, it’s only human nature that if you read a blog and are a “fan,” or whatever you want to call it, you’ll want to crow about this blog when given the opportunity. Enthusiastic crowing is human and not a thing to be ashamed of.

Taking the “crow” out of hosting a carnival surgically removes much of the fun of compiling an issue.

Things are further complicated when you are “on speaking terms” with the blog author, and have traded links and/or comments and/or citations in your blog posts. In these cases, the temptation to weigh in favor of that person’s blog increases exponentially when making editorial decisions. (And I’m not even going to touch the issue of authority-figure bloggers. You get the gist.)

You can easily lose sight of what is the most important criteria: content.

So: to clique or not to click, that is the question.

I came to a bit of a compromise: I decided the solution lay in cultivating a variety of hosts, from as diverse a background as possible. If various cliques are to some extent an inevitability (we’re all human, afterall), then at least these circles would be rotated from issue to issue via the change of hosts. Kind of like crop rotation.

At the time of working on creating Issue 3, this seemed to be a good compromise.

Now that a few weeks have passed, it still seems like a good compromise.

Operating under this rationale, I cherry-picked essays from a few (but not all) of my favorite feminist blogs that hadn’t appeared in previous issues, always taking into account, of course, the need for unique and substantial content.

IV. Übercarnivals and jumping through hoops

I took a dislike to The Truth Laid Bear (TLB) Übercarnival. I didn’t want to be a wandering gecko in the Biosphere 2 or whatever it was, nor did I want to jump through any of the hoops TLB has set up in order to get listed at their site.

Natalie assured me that inclusion at TLB was a Good Idea. She seemed pro-them, so I gave it a whirl. It was by far the most aggravating aspect of my hosting a Carnival.

TLB dictate to carnival hosts the precise wording and linkage to use. If you do not use their exact wording and link, you do not get listed by them.

What? Excuse me, I’m providing content for your site, so that your site has as complete a listing as possible. My cooperation is enhancing the value of your project. So don’t start dictating terms to me.

Natalie and I had much email toing-and-froing, trying to figure out a) if TLB had linked to Issue 3, and (always shortly thereafter) b) why hadn’t TLB linked to Issue 3? A complete waste of time, and aggravating to boot.

Jump through hoops for The Truth Laid Bear? I don’t think so.

In the end I removed the mention of TLB at the end of Issue 3, and let the link to the Blog Carnival site stand. I liked Blog Carnival for its ease of use and no-fuss registration. And their friendly, easy-going attitude.

V. Wolf in sheep’s clothing blogs

You may receive submissions from some blogs that profess to be feminist, yet support agendas that are hostile to women. Do not waste your precious time or energy, shunt these right into the “declined” pile.

There will be an occasional wolf in sheep’s clothing breathing at the door, just begging for you to unlock it. Laugh it off, settle down by the fire, and focus on creating the best feminist carnival issue you possibly can.

VI. What constitutes a blog?

1. problems of definition

What is a blog? Normally, my own definition of “a blog” wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans. However, while I was hosting, this did become a salient topic, because I received a few submissions from web platforms I did not consider to be blogs. Clearly, they had paid staff, and presented their sites as professional journalistic endeavors.

I consulted Natalie via email. I think she and I differed a bit as to what constitutes a blog. To my mind, a blog is defined by the following characteristics:

• a series of time/date stamped posts appearing in reverse chronological date order;
• allows for comments by readers;
• permalinks are assigned to each separate entry;
• the author(s) describe it as a blog, not a “site” or “publication”
• it exists on a blog platform, e.g., a blogspot or Typepad address. (Caveat: not always. Sometimes a blogger may use their own domain name.)

For alternative (but similar) definitions see Answers.com and Wikipedia.

I received nominations from websites that professed to be blogs, but did not use the word in their own definition of the site, nor did they allow for comments. Additionally, they may have had ads, and a pool of paid writers contributing articles to the site. Sorry, not a blog, folks. Try other hosts. Not on my watch. Etc.

I especially balked at being asked to consider something from an online newspaper/magazine; you’re not a blog. Just not a blog.

In the interests of transparency and to spell it out for readers: while my position is reasonable, the chip on my shoulder which you may detect is due to the fact that I felt these people were paid professionals who were trying to gain more publicity on the backs of volunteers’ labor. Volunteers like myself. I felt they were also trying to appropriate a certain degree of credibility within online communities, especially the blogging community, through the vehicle of the carnival, which would lend their site a patina of authenticity.

2. An ironic twist develops…

Now, I find the following bit comical in hindsight.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, Natalie Bennett had been working on a then-unannounced project that demonstrates the slippage between blogs and other forms of online communication. I believe my emailed queries and assertions may have unintentionally raised an area of conflict for her (which she kept private at the time; to her credit, she emailed me her project’s url shortly after our discussion).

In brief: Natalie thinks the line is more fuzzy, I think the line is more firm.

Natalie was always an interested party with which to hold a debate. She held a cordial and professional tone when we disagreed. She also demonstrated a certain sensitivity to my point of view, which I well appreciated.

In fact, although I didn’t know it at the time, Natalie Bennett proved to be exactly the kind of intelligent and even-handed sounding board I needed. This dovetails nicely into my experience with the Carnival Organizer…

VI. Natalie Bennett

Natalie made it clear to me from the very beginning that she liked to take a “hands off” approach.

She provided guidance notes and was available for questions, but otherwise, she believed in stepping back and letting me shape the issue any way I wished.

This is an ideal approach for a carnival organizer to take, as it allows each host a certain amount of creativity and discretion when compiling an issue. This is important because it fosters individualism rather than conformity, allowing the carnival vitality and rejuvination with each new host.

I confess to experiencing a degree of anxiety at the beginning of my time hosting. This quickly dissipated as I began to sink my teeth into the work, however, before that Natalie was sensitive to my “stage-fright” and reassuring.

It needs to be said, too, that Natalie was always open to my questions and concerns. She treated each and every issue I raised with respect. I never got the impression from her that my questions were trivial or irritating, even though some days I sent her multiple emails, some of which claimed emergency status (which I now question).

There was a slight time zone issue, since she’s based in London and I live in the States, but I could always rely on her to get back to me in the evenings (Pacific Standard Time). She replied promptly, never making me wait more than 24 hours, frequently less. I found this impressive for someone who kept many plates spinning in the air, because it showed she had made the Carnival (and hosts) a priority.

In short, Natalie Bennett is a dream Carnival Organizer, especially for first-time hosts. If you’re interested in hosting an issue of The Carnival of Feminists, you couldn’t ask for a better guide. Natalie is a pleasure to work with.

She’s also obscenely nice.

Part I: Introduction | Part II: Technical Notes | Part III: Meta-Issues | Part IV: Reference Links | Part V: Revisions