Carnivale Vanitus Mortuus Est
Strike The Head From The Beast And Be Done With It
I got an email from Zeuswood of Harshly Mellow this week. He's the brave soul that took over the Carnival of the Vanities after Bigwig of Silflay Hraka quit running it.
To give you the gist of the email in a nutshell, ain't no one hosting COTV, ain't no one linking COTV, and iffen that keeps on a-happenin', ain't no one keeping COTV around.
As a frequent reader, occasional contributor and one-time host of the Carnival of the Vanities, I'd like to relate why I no longer much care about the fate of the COTV.
Leeches.
Yup, big slimy leeches. All over the poor thing. They've sucked the life out of the COTV. They've made looking at the COTV so distasteful that I'd just as soon never see it again.
See, there's a sizable group of COTV contributors that have never quite gotten what the Carnival was intended for. The Carnival of the Vanities, as I think most people understood it to be, was a venue for a blogger to post the items they were most proud of. Those special posts where you were firing on all cylinders, and really cranked out a worthy post. Sure, it was done to increase your readership and promote your blog, but at the core was always the assumption that you were putting your best efforts forward.
The leeches never quite got that concept. They'd show up, week after week, posting whatever happened to be the latest item in their blog, probably just before the submission deadline. There was an interesting quote from a recent COTV host named Cait, who said:
Cait, there's ALWAYS have a huge selection of financial posts. The "business blogs" were the worst offenders. The typical contribution from a business blog was a half-assed writeup on some money matter, surrounded by lots and lots of ads. As far as I'm concerned, those aren't bloggers, they're spammers who use Blogspot instead of email. They took advantage of the COTV's high hit rate to shamelessly promote their little bloggy business venture, and eventually pulled the tent down on top of themselves.
I started to count how many times some of these leeches posted, starting at the most recent COTV and going backwards, but I got way too depressed by the time I hit the 10th edition, and had a dozen leeches who had posted on at least 7 of the 10 Carnivals. Spot checks going all the way back to when I hosted showed some of the same miscreants abusing the COTV a year ago.
F#(%ing leeches.
I'm sorry, Zeuswood. I wish it had gone differently. There was a big kerfuffle a long while back about the COTV host having the Powers Of Edit over the submissions, and the good-natured all-inclusive character of the blogosphere ruled that all submissions went into the COTV regardless of merit. At the time, I supported that decision, but in retrospect, it was a mistake. A little judicious editing and/or a once a month entry limit might have kept the leeches at bay.
There are still good carnivals out there. Their niche nature helps keep 'em on track, and largely leech-free. Let's just hope if the COTV fades out the parasites don't infect the remaining carnivals.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to buy a big bag o' salt. Some sprinkling on nasty leeches is in order.
I got an email from Zeuswood of Harshly Mellow this week. He's the brave soul that took over the Carnival of the Vanities after Bigwig of Silflay Hraka quit running it.
To give you the gist of the email in a nutshell, ain't no one hosting COTV, ain't no one linking COTV, and iffen that keeps on a-happenin', ain't no one keeping COTV around.
As a frequent reader, occasional contributor and one-time host of the Carnival of the Vanities, I'd like to relate why I no longer much care about the fate of the COTV.
Leeches.
Yup, big slimy leeches. All over the poor thing. They've sucked the life out of the COTV. They've made looking at the COTV so distasteful that I'd just as soon never see it again.
See, there's a sizable group of COTV contributors that have never quite gotten what the Carnival was intended for. The Carnival of the Vanities, as I think most people understood it to be, was a venue for a blogger to post the items they were most proud of. Those special posts where you were firing on all cylinders, and really cranked out a worthy post. Sure, it was done to increase your readership and promote your blog, but at the core was always the assumption that you were putting your best efforts forward.
The leeches never quite got that concept. They'd show up, week after week, posting whatever happened to be the latest item in their blog, probably just before the submission deadline. There was an interesting quote from a recent COTV host named Cait, who said:
A funny thing though - we have a HUGE selection of posts on finances today, so sit back and enjoy.
Cait, there's ALWAYS have a huge selection of financial posts. The "business blogs" were the worst offenders. The typical contribution from a business blog was a half-assed writeup on some money matter, surrounded by lots and lots of ads. As far as I'm concerned, those aren't bloggers, they're spammers who use Blogspot instead of email. They took advantage of the COTV's high hit rate to shamelessly promote their little bloggy business venture, and eventually pulled the tent down on top of themselves.
I started to count how many times some of these leeches posted, starting at the most recent COTV and going backwards, but I got way too depressed by the time I hit the 10th edition, and had a dozen leeches who had posted on at least 7 of the 10 Carnivals. Spot checks going all the way back to when I hosted showed some of the same miscreants abusing the COTV a year ago.
F#(%ing leeches.
I'm sorry, Zeuswood. I wish it had gone differently. There was a big kerfuffle a long while back about the COTV host having the Powers Of Edit over the submissions, and the good-natured all-inclusive character of the blogosphere ruled that all submissions went into the COTV regardless of merit. At the time, I supported that decision, but in retrospect, it was a mistake. A little judicious editing and/or a once a month entry limit might have kept the leeches at bay.
There are still good carnivals out there. Their niche nature helps keep 'em on track, and largely leech-free. Let's just hope if the COTV fades out the parasites don't infect the remaining carnivals.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to buy a big bag o' salt. Some sprinkling on nasty leeches is in order.
posted by El Capitan | 4:08 PM
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