Announcing the Carnival of the Liberals!

[salvorhardin]

There’s a new blog carnival in town! The Carnival of the Liberals is the first and only blog carnival devoted to highlighting the best of liberal blogging from all over the web.

A blog carnival is just a special type of blog community that acts as a sort of magazine. There are so many great blogs out there that it’s often hard to keep up with your favorite blogs, and even harder to find new blogs with interesting content. A blog carnival is a way of showcasing the best blogging around a particular subject area.

A blog carnival also moves around. While every carnival is organized around a central site, each edition of a blog carnival is held at a different blog. This gives each edition of a blog carnival a distinct flavor as each host decides which submissions to include and how to lay out their edition of the carnival.

The Carnival of the Liberals fills a hole in the blog carnival world. The very first blog carnivals were all conservative in their orientation and naturally have grown and multiplied in number. Until now there haven’t been any liberal blog carnivals. The Carnival of the Liberals has come to change that.

The first edition of the inaugural season of the Carnival of the Liberals will be held on Wednesday, December 7, 2005 at Brainshrub with the second edition of the CotL at Neural Gourmet on Wednesday, December 21, 2005. There will be a new Carnival of the Liberals every other Wednesday thereafter.

All the details you need, including submission guidelines are at the Carnival of the Liberals website. Anyone with a liberally oriented blog is invited to submit their best liberal blogging using the submission form at the website. Help us make this very first Carnival of the Liberals a roaring success!

[mokawanis]

1. Great idea

I'll be sure to watch the carnival evolve.

[salvorhardin]

2. Thank you!

I'm excited about this myself.

[mia]

3. Carnival?

Hate to say it, but this sounds like an invitation to a freak show.
Why "carnival"?

[salvorhardin]

5. Carnival just happens to be what they're called

Carnival is not only an accepted term but a respected one in blogging circles. There are literally hundreds of blog carnivals.

If you want to read more about blog carnivals, check out what Bora from Science and Politics has to say, as well as the great write up he gave us. Incidentally, Bora will be hosting the third edition of the Carnival of the Liberals.

Announcing the brand new spectacular Carnival of the Liberals!

Why are we letting the Right take over the world of blog carnivals? They have a dozen or so carnivals devoted to bashing the Left, each with a different level of obnoxiousness. It's time to strike back!

So, I am happy to report that a couple of enterprising souls on the Left are launching the brand new, super-special Carnival of the Liberals, "the first and only blog carnival devoted to highlighting the best of liberal blogging from all around the web." If you click on that link you'll see that the website has an automated submission form, making it easy to participate.
http://sciencepolitics.blogspot.com/2005/11/announcing-brand-new-spectacular.html

Bora has written extensively about the blog carnival phenomenum. Check out what he has to say in the following entries.
http://sciencepolitics.blogspot.com/2005/10/convergesouth-blog-carnivals.html
http://sciencepolitics.blogspot.com/2005/06/blog-carnivals-and-future-of.html
http://sciencepolitics.blogspot.com/2005/07/meta-carnival-6.html

[brainshrub]

4. Please keep this kicked and nominated.

Spread the word, far and wide.

This is a very worthy project that Salvorhardin is spearheading. We look forward reading to your work and aggregating it far and wide.

Anything the cons can do on the internet, Liberals can do better.

When "Carnival of the Godless" posted my material, it generated an extra hundred unique visitors a day for my site. Unlike a link from FARK or Slashdot, which generates a temporary spike, Carnival traffic introduces your blog to people who will become repeat readers.

If you have a blog entry that you are particularly proud of, send it to the Carnival and join the party.

Brainshrub.com is 100% behind CotL and is proud to be the first host.

[La Coliniere]

6. Kick

I love their midway. Where's the newest "simp twister"?

[salvorhardin]

7. bedtime kick n/t

[greyl]

8. Very Cool idea indeed.

However, I couldn't help imagining some possible improvements to the entrance.


for example,
"As such, submissions advocating Conservatism, Libertarianism, This-ism, That-ism, or any other ‘ism’ that is in dischord with the rational defintition of Liberalism (please see the the linked Wikipedia page), will be considered albeit with a brutal level of skepticism and critical thought."

(skepticism being a liberal trait, i suppose)

[EFerrari]

9. Great idea -- really helpful for those of us stuck with the 24 hr day.

:kick:

[salvorhardin]

10. Thanks sfexpat

There's some really amazing and informative writing out there and blog carnivals are a great way of getting it more exposure.

[beam me up scottie]

11. Kick.

:kick:

[GOPFighter]

12. This is an exciting concept

I currently spend more time than I'd like to admit surfing blogs looking for interesting intersting content. The Carnival concept seems to have a lot of promise. I recommend we bookmark this site and support it if it lives up to it's promise.

Personally I get excited watching the Internet evolve. Concepts like Carnivals (though I'm not fond of the term) might be the next step forward.

Kudos to Salvorhardin for exploring this concept.

[progressoid]

13. Definitely going to keep an eye on this one. Thanks!

[progressoid]

14. Dupe

[brainshrub]

16. This post isn't a dupe.

Where is the dupe?

[EFerrari]

15. kick

[salvorhardin]

17. Thanks everybody for the responses

I should note however that there seems to be a little confusion based on the submissions we're getting.

The idea is not that you send us a link to your blog, but rather that you send us a link to what you think is your best writing. In other words, pick your single best article written in the past couple of weeks and send us a link directly to that article.

The concept is not meant to simply be a list of liberal blogs, but rather a magazine of the best liberal writing within the past couple of weeks. Think of it as sort of an Utne Reader of the liberal blog world.

I hope that helps, but in addition, if you're new to the concept, then I really encourage you to read the following and please do follow the links to what Bora Zivkovic from Science and Politics has written on the subject.
http://carnivaloftheliberals.com/topics/administrivia/2005/11/23/what-is-a-blog-carnival

This is also a good article to read on the concept. It's oriented toward those who want to host an edition of a carnival (as opposed to us idiots who want to organize a carnival) but it is also a good exploration of the concept for those unfamiliar with blog carnivals.
http://10000birds.com/hostwiththemost.htm

[Zenlitened]

18. Neat idea!

:applause:

:)

[AuntiBush]

19. This is really interesting!

And innovated. Embarrassed that I'm just learning of this. Keep it rotating. Bookmarked, and passing this one around.

Thank you!!!

[salvorhardin]

20. Black Friday kick n/t

[displacedtexan]

21. This is so cool, guys!

I've been really disappointed in the blog carnival tilt-a-whirl (it's always been way too slanted to the right!).

I'll be sure to check every Wednesday for updates (for the DU Blog Box column-- my deadline is Thursday at noon).

This is great news!

Be sure to post this in the DU Bloggers Forum, too!

[salvorhardin]

22. Thanks so much displacedtexan!

I didn't even realize there was a blogger's forum at DU! :-)

You be sure to submit something to CotL too.

[salvorhardin]

23. One last kick

One last kick and we'll this thread die...

The response so far has been terrific! We've already received 6 submissions, and got ourselves a shiny new logo. This is a great opportunity to get your blogs read more and help promote liberalism.