The Other Side of the Coin to Hosting a Blog Carnival
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Last month I wrote a post asking if Hosting a Blog Carnival is Worth the Effort? I answered with a resounding YES!
Well, as we all know, there are “Two Sides to Every Coin“.
Although I mentioned a few of the Disadvantages like Spam and Scrapers, I also hit on the fact that it is Time Consuming. That last point is the one I want to deal with now.
I don’t really mind having to spend the necessary amount of time to deal with Spammers and Scrapers. I have come to expect it and have it built into my schedule accordingly. What I am talking about here is the fact that a lot of the participants don’t seem to bother reading my little Intro on the Carnival Submission Form.
I only ask that people Don’t Spam (Spammers ignore that anyway) and that the submitters include a Category and Short Description of their article. I also limit submissions to ONE Article per person per URL per week, so that everybody has a shot.
As I mentioned in the above referenced article, I read EVERY valid submission. However, that has had to change a bit recently. Now, I read the FIRST submission and will include it in the Carnival as long as it is not Spam. The main reason for this drastic change is that every week people ignore the One Submission request. As an example, so far this week (I wrote this on Tuesday) out of 110 submissions - not including Spam - 73 were some form of duplicate. That’s 80.3% of the articles I have to go through every week.
I don’t have the time nor the desire to go through duplicate (sometimes triplicate) submissions. It is getting to the point of being a ridiculous waste of my time. I am considering closing the Carnival for good unless people start following the few simple rules I have.
But the most important consideration is for YOU, the Readers and Friends of Working at Home on the Internet, what do you want? Please take a second to take this poll, I will make a final decision based on your input and the results you want. (If you are reading the feed you may have to click through to voice your opinion)
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.
I still think running a Blog Carnival can be an advantage to everyone involved, but the only one that really counts is YOU! And I will make the extra effort if that’s what YOU want.
The Poll will be in the sidebar until next Tuesday 3/4. I WILL have the Carnival this week but Next Week is Up to You.
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I like the carnival, Joe. Every week I find at least one or two posts that I read.
I know from the time or two I hosted a carnival it is a lot of work. I would be ruthless about cutting out multiple submissions. Don’t even look at them past the point of finding out they are a duplicate. Eventually people should get the point.
Input by Rick Cockrum | February 27, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
Hey Rick,
I was sending e-mails to the individual offenders reminding them of the one submission rule but, I have gotten to the point that when I see a dup or five, I just put them in the deny folder.
We’ll see what the poll shows, if people really want it, I will continue and bite the bullet with a big smile.
Input by Joe | February 27, 2008 @ 3:29 pm
I fully sympathize with how draining it is to run a carnival. I ran one for one of my blogs for almost a year and found myself wanting to pull my hair out each week because I either didn’t receive enough submissions to bother or I received so many that it ate up an entire day. On top of that, the link-back ratio was pretty awful.
Personally, I voted for you to keep it but that’s just because I only recently discovered your carnival and want to see mroe of it.
Ultimately, though, I think you should make whichever decision that allows you to enjoy blogging the most.
Input by Blogging for the Money | February 29, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
Hey Kate,
Yeah, it is a LOT of work, I already have 50+ submissions for this coming week. But to me, the blogging is about the reader, so it looks like this may still go on for a while yet.
Input by Joe | March 1, 2008 @ 9:08 am
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