Christian Carnival Participation Instructions

The Christian Carnival was founded over a year ago by Nick Queen of Patriot Paradox. The Christian Blogosphere owes Nick a great deal of gratitude for his fine service. Now Nick is channeling his energies into another service project promoting new Christian blogs, and the administration of the Christian Carnival is passing to Wittenberg Gate.

Below are instructions for those wishing to contribute to the Christian Carnival, and below that for those who have volunteered to host. I would appreciate any suggestions for improvement of these policies and instructions.

Contributing a Post to the Christian Carnival

The Christian Carnival is open to Christians of Protestant, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic convictions. One of the goals of this Carnival is to offer our readers to a broad range of Christian thought.

Posts need not be of a theological topic. Posts about home life, politics, or current events, for example, written from a Christian worldview are welcome.

Update: As the goal of this Carnival is to highlight Christian thought in the blogosphere, entries will be limited to blogs that share that goal. Blogs with content that is focused on a business, that has potentially offensive material Christians may not want to link to on their sites, or has no reference to distinctively Christian thought may not be included in  this Carnival. There are other Carnivals that would be a more appropriate venue for that material. I realize that this will be a judgment call on the part of the Carnival administrator, and being human she may make mistakes. However, as the Christian Carnival is getting quite large, and it is sometimes questionable whether the entrants are seeking to promote Christian thought, I find this necessary.

Update: We also expect a level of discourse that is suitable for a Christian showcase. Thus entries may be refused if they engage in name-calling, ad hominem attacks, offensive language, or for any similar reason as judged by the administrator.

If you have not already done so, get yourself on the Christian Carnival email list. This list is used for Christian Carnival business only, and enables you to receive weekly information on where to send your post and an announcement when the Carnival has been posted. Use this box to get on the list or visit the group website. You can expect to receive only about two to five emails a week from this list.

                               

	Subscribe to Christian Carnival
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You may contribute any post written during the seven days preceding the Christian Carnival (Wednesday). You may wish to consider that the readership of the Christian Carnival will be more varied than your usual readership, and you might do better contributing a post with broad appeal.

You may contribute only one post per blog.

Update: Hosts have the option of limiting the Christian Carnival to the first 40 acceptable entries. Just one more reason for you to enter early!

Email Christian Carnival's submission gmail address* with the following details:

The name of your blog and a link to your main site. (Adding the name with a hyperlink would be a nice courtesy to the host.)

The title of your post and the URL of the post. (Again, adding the title with a hyperlink would be helpful.)

If you want a trackback, include a trackback link. (Tracking back is optional. Some hosts may oblige you, others may not have the time or ability.)

Include a short (one or two sentence) description of the post. Your description may be edited by the host, but is often used just as it is.

* This gmail address is to be used for submissions only. If you have administration questions, want to be added to the email list, or want to host the Carnival, contact Dory at this address.

The deadline for submissions is Tuesday evening at midnight, Eastern (US) Standard Time. (EST is GMT minus five hours.) Early submissions are helpful to the host.

When the Carnival is posted, please announce it and link to it on your site. You might say our kind hosts are “paid” for their hours of work by the links they receive on Christian Carnival day.

Any questions? Ask Dory.

Hosting

Thank you for considering serving the Christian blogs by hosting the Christian Carnival. The goal of the Christian Carnival is to highlight Christian thought in the blogosphere by gaining exposure for Christian blogs and helping readers find more sites to add to their regular reading list.

Plan to spend at least two to three hours on building the CC post. It is a big job, but you will be rewarded with many links!

Entries will be emailed to Christian Carnival's gmail address. Contact Dory by Thursday and let her know what email address you would like these messages to be automatically forwarded to. You can expect forty or more entries, so if you may want to set up a special email account for this purpose. If you need a gmail account invite, let us know.

By Friday before your turn to host, send an email to the Carnival list to remind folks to send their posts. You may also want to post an invitation and instructions on your site and link to the posting instructions here.

I suggest you begin building your post as the entries come in, so you will not have to build the entire post in one sitting.

Update: You may limit the entries to the first 40 (or 50) acceptable entries if you wish. If you do limit entries, please do so on the basis of entry order only. Do not select your favorites.

This is how I handle the incoming mail: As each entry comes in, I flag it and then move it into a folder called “Carnival Builder.” Then, as I add each entry to the site, I remove the flag.

For each entry include a link to and name of the main site, a link to the post and its title, and a short description of the post. You may edit the post descriptions if you wish or add commentary of your own. If the description you are sent is in the first person, you may want to change that.

Here is a sample:

Wittenberg Gate sends us Are You Bad Enough to Be a Christian?, a gospel presentation that emphasizes that the Christian relies on the righteousness of Christ rather than his or her own works.

Sending trackback pings is optional, but if you have the ability and the time the authors appreciate it. (If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it!)

Get the post up sometime on Wednesday, Eastern Standard Time. (EST is GMT minus 5 hours.) The earlier in the day you post, the better, as regular readers will be looking for it on Wednesday, as will the big-name sites who regularly promote it.

Once you have posted, send a notice to the Christian Carnival email list, including the post URL and, if you would like pings, the trackback link. Ask the entrants to visit your site and test their own links and proofread their information.

The Christian Carnival is open to Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox Christians. There is a place for dividing and defining ourselves according to doctrine, but because of the goals of the Christian Carnival, this is not one of those places. As you host, please give equal treatment to all denominations/sects that fall within the three spheres of Christianity listed above.

If you believe a post does not come from one of these broadly defined categories (from a pseudo-Christian cult group, for example), contact the CC administrator (Dory of Wittenberg Gate) for advice. If I share your concerns, I will contact the submitter for you and explain why their posts are not eligible for inclusion.

The posts must be dated on or after the date of the last Christian Carnival.

As host, you are free to put your own personality into this. The following are suggestions, but feel free to deviate from them as you see fit.

When there are a large number of posts, it is best to find a way to organize them, to break up the reading. You can choose categories by types of post, for example: Devotional, apologetic, culture, politics, etc., or some other system of your choosing.

Sometimes hosts highlight a few favorites as "Editor's Choice" selections. If you choose to do this, please do so on the basis of writing and clarity of expression rather than whether or not you agree with the writer's viewpoint.

Thank you for your service. Email Dory if you have any questions.

Comments

[Jeremy Pierce]

One thing we've generally allowed in the past is more than one submission from a blog with multiple authors, provided there's no more than one submission per author.

What I'm not sure we should do about is when people who post on more than one blog want to submit more than one post from their different blogs. The Carnival of the Vanities regularly has something like seven posts from the same guy on his different blogs. We've never had it come up with the Christian Carnival, so I don't think we've ever had a policy on it.

[Jeremy Pierce]

It's usually been at the host's discretion when to set a deadline. I prefer a much earlier deadline than some hosts do. Occasionally someone even wants it to be as early as noon on Tuesday. Once it was even Monday night. Those of us who take longer to put these things together sometimes will need that extra time. I'd be very reluctant to want to impose a uniform deadline no matter what the host wishes, given that we've had freedom in the past. It's your call, though.

[William Meisheid]

Since you are establishing yourself as the clearinghouse for all submissions I think it would be good if you set up an acknowldegement of all submissions, so that we are sure they were received. The week I hosted the carnival, I replied to everyone that sent a submission.

One week my submission was not included and I was never sure if it was lost or not.