However, we the blogosphere, are wasting much time and bandwidth on routine posts. I see many time-constrained bloggers wasting a few minutes each week merely to provide their readers with the current location of various carnivals. This is silly and inefficient. Even the business oriented Carnival of the Capitalists follows this wasteful practice. However, Jay Solo deserves kudos for creating one constant email address for new submissions: capitalists -at- elhide.com.
Instead of continuing this poor use of time, I propose the following. Each carnival originator should create one page for their carnival. For example, Bigwig, as the originator of the Carnival of the Vanities (COV), should maintain an URL such as this: http://silflayhraka.com/cov.html. All bloggers who wish to link to the current COV would simply set up a bookmark with the aforementioned URL. Each week, Bigwig would change that one URL to redirect people to the current carnival.
This time-savings approach could be used for more than just carnivals. Poliblogger could use it for his Toast-a-Meter. The Watcher's Council could use it for their weekly roundup. As motivation for people to increase blogging efficiency, I will link to any (non-crude) carnival bookmark that implements my suggestion by the end of March. While I frequently change my links, I will leave your link up for the rest of 2003 even if I don't care for your particular carnival.
Think globally, act locally.
Done. http://elhide.com/solo/cc.htm is now available.
That was fast!
Well, a quick response deserves the same. Your new permalink now appears on the right under Carnivals of the Realm.
Except for that one week where the server blew up, the weekly list of nominations and voting results are always posted on my blog... and here is the link to my category archive of these posts.
Good for the Watcher!
10 points for you and a permalink to the right.
And -10 points for not publicizing and expanding your idea to all metablogs ;-)
I've been frustrated by all the roaming carnivals too, and lately I have been making weekly posts in an attempt to keep track of them all... or at least as many as I can find that week.
Major downside: A large part of the incentive for hosting the silly things is getting the linkage. With the collapse of the Ecosystem, that may be less of an issue, though.
James has a good point, which I had also thought of, but at least the fixed URL makes it easy to find the thing. Then if you are a fellow blogger, you can always post a link to the direct URL for that week.
Watcher,
I'd never heard of the Carnival of the Canucks before. There are a few others that aren't on your list too. I forget the names of most of them, but one of them is the "Best of Me".
James,
True enough. Hopefully the added traffic would make it worth their while. I know I hosted (and will host) because I enjoy the carnivals (and this way I can pay my fair share) and because it gives more people the chance to look around my blog.
Ooh, what a good idea!
Ooh, what a good idea!