"You could nuke Sweden off the planet, and Japanese archeology would not suffer." -Martin Rundkvist
I'm eating lunch now at the NC Science Blogging Conference after a great discussion, led by Martin, about blogging about the humanities and social sciences. Many topics were covered (including the difference between the definitions of "humanities" in America and Europe), but one that I thought might be especially interesting to 3.14 readers is Martin's definition of a blog carnival. (More below the fold.)
Like a traveling carnival (in, you know, real life), blog carnivals are subject-specific link fests that travel from one blog host to another every couple of weeks or every month. Because they often have their own subset of readers that will follow them wherever they go, Martin pointed out that hosting a carnival is a great way for a new blogger to get noticed.
Carnival hosts are responsible for choosing which links get displayed in a carnival, as well as for providing commentary (or not) about each link. Thinking of submitting a post to one of Martin's carnivals (like his favorite, Four Stone Hearth)? Be careful! Martin sees carnivals as web equivalents to scholarly journals or anthologies. "I'm ruthless," he said proudly, "and cull pretty heavily."