Comments on: Should Blog Carnivals Accept All Entries?

By: Leah Maclean

Leah Maclean — Tue, 23 May 2006 20:36:07 +0000

I am finding that the current size of Carnival of the Capitalists is putting me off from reading it each week in any depth. I give it a quick scan and if there isn’t anything of immediate interest I let it go for another week.

With the Carnival of Entrepreneurship though I feel that reading each of the 7 entries each week is manageable and most weeks will read each of the posts in detail.

Yes CotC provides more choice, but it strikes me that it falls into the category of too much choice.

As the host next week for CotC the overwhelm at the number of subsmissions is taking on a whole new twist.

By: Trapier

Trapier — Tue, 23 May 2006 15:14:09 +0000

If the marginal benefit to the Carnival of accepting the 8th submission is greater than the marginal cost, then accept 8 instead of 7. If the marginal benefit of accepting the 9th submission is greater than the marginal cost, then accept 9 instead of 8. Continue this analysis over all possible numbers of submission.

Why might a post have marginal benefit? It encourages submitter loyalty from its submitter. Why might a post have marginal cost? I don’t think it does. If people stop paying attention after 7 links, then the first seven links are the ones they’ll read no matter how long the entire post is.

The answer? Since the marginal benefit always exceeds the marginal cost of accepting another submission, accept all submissions.

By: Ben Yoskovitz

Ben Yoskovitz — Tue, 23 May 2006 00:53:58 +0000

This is a good question, and a tough question. I’ve thought about it on a few occasions because I’ve had entries published in both the Carnival of Entrepreneurship and the Carnival of Capitalists.

In the Carnival of Entrepreneurship which limits to 7 posts, you definitely feel positive about the fact that your post was selected. Of course, you don’t know how many were submitted in the first place. And, I could see if your post was rejected that you could be disheartened, and perhaps not bother submitting again.

On the positive side, the Carnival of Entrepreneurship feels more manageable from a reader’s perspective; there’s 7 good quality articles that I know the host has selected for my reading pleasure.

With the Carnival of Capitalists it’s obviously much broader, so many more posts are being published. The hosts are doing a great job of sorting them into categories (so if finance is my thing, I’ll read the finance posts), and I particularly like when the host picks those s/he finds most interesting. In the last Carnival of Capitalists they were titled “Editor’s choices” (or picks). This is a good signal for me to start by reading those.

There’s no question it’s hard to read all the posts in the Carnival of Capitalists, but the topic is broad and the posts have all been of qood quality. With categorization and the host picking his/her selections of preference I think that gives readers enough of a way of getting to what they want. It provides a good enough “filter” without overdoing it and limiting my access to the information.

My only concern with the Carnival of Capitalists would be if the quality deteriorates. But I think the hosts would then step in and eliminate submissions that weren’t worthwhile to the readers.

So there you have it. Both ways work. So much for having a strong opinion. *smile*