Carnival of the Vanities #152

Another week, another Carnival, but this one offers a significant twist.

When the Carnival of the Vanities began, mere participation assured one of a fair amount of traffic. Now, with Carnival proliferation and inflation, traffic for participants has been reduced to a trickle. Even Carnival hosts do far less well than they would with some other InstaPundit link.

Will Franklin acknowledges the inflation of Carnivals and Carnival links, and shows respect for readers by rating and qualifying the links, using a 1 to 10 scale. He also rewards the courtesy of early responders by placing links in the order received.

The system is a boon for readers, and annoying to lower-rated posters. It may have the side benefit of keeping poorer posters away from future Carnivals, to avoid the potential humiliation. Unsurprisingly, some posters complained about a poor rating. To one, Will candidly responds: Your post was poor. Get over it. How refreshing to hear the mediocrity of so many of these posts acknowledged.

We saw more commentary on this Carnival than we have in some time. Will Franklin deserves praise -and emulation- for risking blogger wrath in service to his readers. As he points out, each week's host has the right to run their Carnival as (s)he sees fit. The only thing we'd change is that we'd offer advance warning to submitters: You will be included - but you will also be rated.

We and Don Surber got '7's, and Jersey's own Grok the Idiom copped a '9', and was praised by one commenter as 'the best of the lot'. (No '10's' were issued.) Go Grok!

Next week, August 24, 2005, the Carnival will be hosted by Vic Rubenfeld's The Big Picture. You can make your submission here. For more information, visit Silflay Hraka.

{UPDATE: Controversy follows this week's Carnival to Wizbang.}

Categories: Internet+culture