http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2006/09/convergesouth05_blog_carnivals.php

Just avoid having the word “carnival” in the title….and let me know when the thing starts so I cam promote it.

In another day or two, I will update this post one more time with a summary of the ideas put forth here.

Perhaps a few more geo-bloggers who are reading this (I know you’re there!), even if they don’t necessarily have input regarding the format, can simply say that they would participate. Then we’ll have an idea of the numbers bloggers who might be involved.

The real misgiving I’ve always had about a geology carnival in the sense of the Tangled Bank is the much smaller pool of blogs to cull posts from. There are literally hundreds of life sciences blogs out there, which makes a carnival format a great way to highlight high-quality posts that people might initially have missed. In comparison, there are a relative handful of active earth science blogs, and – thanks to innovations like link blogs and side bar tickers – not only is there less stuff to sift through, but it also generally gets brought to your attention the first time around. I’ve hosted Philosophia Naturalis a couple of times, and much as I would have liked to plug my own domain of the physical sciences both times I was made aware of how small our footprint currently is in the blogosphere (although I’d like to think it was made by a very finely tailored foot).

I do, however, see considerable potential in the topic/region of the month idea. Such a focus would make our small numbers less of a disadvantage, because we’d be writing a post specifically for the purpose of inclusion; and I think it would be very interesting to demonstrate the vast number of different disciplines and tools wielded by geology – which is, after all, one of the things which makes it so interesting. We might even to be able to ask experts in particular regions to contribute guest posts, which could maybe in the long-term garner more recruits from our interweb-phobic compatriots. Most importantly, it has novelty – we’d be trying something a little different, and that could get a lot of attention.

Anyway, I’m definitely willing to get involved – title-wise, we could always go the faux academic route and call it ‘The Journal of Geological Blogging’ or somesuch…

I too like the idea of the focus being on a geographical region or a time…that is a good idea. The beauty of the blogosphere is that people of many disciplines are coming together…so, it would likely work against that to try and focus on particular disciplines. The region and time aspect are two ways to keep all disciplines engaged. If you look at the other science carnivals I noted, they are pretty broad.

Another idea, potentially for future carnivals, would be Alessia’s suggestion about field/lab work stories. We could also have a carnival about Earth hazards, or other topics where Earth science intersects with the general public (esp. when something is all over the news).

I think Kent is right on w/ his perspective of what the carnival is all about. While we do want to highlight the writing and the topic(s), it is also very much about exposing each other to other blogs (and hopefully all of us gaining some readers outside our community).

I guess I would view the carnival as somewhere in between the generic geo tickers many of us have and a much more specific ‘call for abstracts’. We certainly aren’t trying to be a hardcore technical session, but the carnival style puts more attention on the aggregation of posts than an automated ticker. I have been looking at the BPR3 initiative a little bit…it is still in its infancy, but we should keep an eye on it.

The job of the host is to not only physically host the links to the posts, but also provide some context.

So, what do we have so far:

- frequency: about one carnival per month (i think that’s perfect, but am open)

- topic(s): ideally, striking a balance between focus (e.g., region, time period) and breadth of disciplines

- name/logo: we need to work on this

At this point, let’s see if we get some more input over the next few days from the other geo-bloggers. In the meantime, if we are to pick a region for the first carnival, what should it be?

Kent seems to be far more familiar with the workings of carnivals than I am, but I have to respectfully differ with him on one point. I fear that if we simply call a broad carnival and aggregate posts from all over the geoblogosphere it differs little from what my Google Reader Geology Link Blog already does. I, for one, could use the motivation of focusing on a selected theme to spur my geologic blogging.

Anyhow, that’s my two cents. I’ll be eager to see how it works in any case, so I agree with the others… Go for it, Brian.

The way I’ve seen most carnivals operate is that a blogger announces they will be posting/hosting a carnival at such and such a date a few weeks in advance, and invites people to email them posts others have made which might suit the theme. The host also obviously goes looking for suitable posts.

Then you get the carnival post which (I’d suggest) is kept pretty broad so everyone is interested. Better to have too much material than too little – it serves to draw peoples’ interest to areas they wouldn’t normally read about. Then the baton passes to another blogger to host the next one.

Things might have changed in the last year, but I suspect that’s still the best way of doing it.

Ideally the community a carnival serves is large enough such that each host brings some different sites to the event each month, and people find new (to them) and interesting blogs.

In my experience, also, you don’t want them to be too often – so often the next carnival has come when I’m still busy reading posts from the last one (I’d suggest a month at minimum as a healthy interval, and to delay for a little while if posts are thin on the ground). Neither is it too healthy (IMNSHO) to have people always writing posts deliberately for the carnival. BUT, I think the geology community in particular needs no encouragement to write longer/more focused/more interesting posts (which is generally the result carnivals indirectly have) – the quality around here is already staggeringly good! Brian’s geoblogosphere-ticker is like a carnival in motion.

Ron, as for your concern about carnivals being too broad – try not to think of it as contributing to a specific carnival (eg conference abstracts), but the general land o’blog (eg the literature at large). And you don’t want to isolate people by being too selective. Keep it earthy, and we’ll all be happy I suspect!

I say go for it :)