In writing this last biblical studies carnival I was struck by how much larger a job it has become than when I first did one. My own reader has far more feeds in than before, and the time needed to check them out (never mind follow-up some of their interactions) for a reasonably representative carnival has grown exponentially. I don’t think I’m being overly pessimistic in wondering how near to tipping point things are getting.
I’m therefore hoping this post might be by way of starting a conversation about the future. I think I can identify three directions, although others may well see it differently.
The first possibility is to leave it much as is. It is simply up to the host to decide how much or how little effort they will put in, and we will all be more or less grateful accordingly. I suspect, however, that this is a recipe for encouraging feelings of guilt and failure as the number of feeds and posts continues to grow.
The second option is to go over entirely to listing the (mainly self-)nominations that were sent in. The Christian carnival does this on a weekly basis. The work for the host is correspondingly lighter. I see a number of problems with this. There were a number of self-submissions (probably around 15-20) that simply were not related to the academic study of the Bible. There were some that were blatant advertising of some “Christian” product or other. There were one or two which were borderline academic, but not very good. The majority were devotional reflections on one or other scripture text.
Currently everything is down to the editorial discretion of the host, and everyone knows it, so no-one complains. I think this is because hosts generally do a good job at trying to be broad-ranging and representative. I foresee a much greater degree of hassle if self-submission is the norm and the host rejects good devotional posts but allows poor academic ones. The thing is, with the Biblical Studies Carnival there is a sense that someone else other than the author thinks this or that piece is worth reading. It’s not exactly peer review, but it does have an added value all its own.
The final route I foresee is one that is both more individual and more collaborative. The initial carnival post is essentially a short or medium length opinionated essay with a good number of links on topics currently engaging biblical study focussed bloggers and largely within the interest range of the host. This then generates a comment thread that says things like: “all very well, but in contemporary queer readings of the post-exilic reconstructions of early monarchy the posts that really mattered were X Y and Z and I think you should read those as well”. Something like this is, I think, my preferred option although I’m sure there are lots of things that will need to be thought through if something along these lines is to work.
But over to you. I really hope you will either leave a comment here, or write a post of your own and link here. I’d like to see us discuss this before the carnival collapses under the weight of too many blogs.
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Thanks Doug for the thoughtful reflection – your koan “topics currently engaging biblical study” is a good single-hand-clapping. The operative word is ‘current’ not ‘comprehensive’. Current allows a collector of posts to go with the flow (as it were). The collective engaged mind might be minimalism one month and Israelite devotion to monarchy the next.
I am sorry to hear about the posts that miss the mark. I am grateful to you and all other considerate hosts for those that don’t. My own view as a reader of the BS carnival is that I can see what is going on roughly and delve as I might into a set of book reviews if a title catches my eye. I suspect there is a lot going on that I might find in some other carnival that I just don’t see, but what can one do – there is only so much time in a day.
I admit that the weekly Christian carnival is one that I usually do not read or post to. Partly because there are so many red herrings in Cyber-Christendom. The many currents are too wide to swim in.
I kind of like the carnivals as they are, but that’s easy for me to say, because I’ve only done one of them, and I haven’t (yet) signed up to do any more. I recall it being a lot of work, but also a lot of fun.
I’ve thought about over the last few months and more intensively over the last few days. I still haven’t reached a conclusion. On the one hand, I rather like the extensive approach and am willing to take on the Carnival the way it is. In fact, I’m signed up to do one in February and am rather looking forward to it. But then, I have more time on my hands than many of the rest of you. On the other hand, I rather like the approach used by Four Stone Hearth, Christian carnival and several others of building the carnival around submissions only. Because many (most?) do not really concern the academic study of the Bible, the host will still have the task of filtering out the irrelevancies and perhaps an obligation to interact with the individual posts more than we currently do. Your third suggestion is interesting but I worry that the comment stream might become a forum for those who make thsse irrelevant suggestions or degenerate into a dissuasion among some subset of the community. That said, I do wish that more comments addressed the content more often than they do. “Thank you,” “Congratulations,” and “Good Job” are great but sometimes I wish there was real interaction. Of course, I am guilty of not interacting very much myself.
Another cooperative approach might to present a master carnival that highlights a few posts and then directs readers to, coordinated, topical carnivals. This only works if host recruiting really relates to the size of the job. Would it be easier to recruit four or five hosts, each doing a topical carnival than it is to recruit one host doing the whole thing? I rather doubt it.
More when and if I have any better ideas.
I wonder if it is possible to have two different bloggers do a separate Hebrew Bible Carnival and a New Testament/Christian origins Carnival each month – maybe that would cut each work down by half and people interested in biblical studies would still read both? Or have even more specialized carnivals in different months (e.g. media and Bible, archaeology, Pauline literature…)?
I like Mike’s idea. It would require more cooperation on the part of the volunteers, but perhaps it’s time to split up those categories into different blog posts altogether.
Thanks so far. I think I’m dubious about over-specialisation. There are, clearly a lot of different views out there. Keep them coming.
I offer another proposal here based upon an entirely different blogging community, breastfeeding blogs (my wife has one). The idea is basically that everybody who wishes to participate in the carnival publishes a post on a predetermined communal topic on the same day. J.C. follows up with a good thought about how the idea might function for us and what the responsibilities of the carnival “host” would be. I really like his idea of everybody being invited to respond on their blogs about the topic and then the carnival host highlights the best responses to that topic, as well as perhaps a little synthesis of the discussion.
I too am wary about overspecialization. I think this idea of one big topical carnival to be discussed by bloggers in any specialty would really help for cross-specialty conversation. And just more conversation in general. I offered a few examples of possible topics on the post, but plenty others could be considered.
Hi Doug,
Thanks for initiating this discussion. I have pondered this long and hard as well. As the coordinator of the Biblical Studies Carnivals I have posted a response on my blog here
Doug, I’m not an avid reader of these, but mentally am comparing to the Britblog roundup, which hosts at a variety of sites in turn. People are limited to 1 recommendation each, and it’s a miscellany rather than a comprehensive survey. If you limited it just to stuff recommended by someone other than the author, that might ensure that the quality (or just the best self-publicists?) rise to the top.
Latest one here: http://charlescrawford.biz/blog/bbru-250-adapt-or-mitigate-edition rules are here http://britblogroundup.blogspot.com/
That’s an interesting idea. And thanks for the links – I hadn’t come across this one before.
For biblioblogs, I think the big kahuna has already made his own decision, however!
Per your request: my two cents.
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