A Blog Carnival is a particular kind of blog community. There are many kinds of blogs, and they contain articles on many kinds of topics. Blog Carnivals typically collect together links pointing to blog articles on a particular topic. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.

There is so much stuff in the blog-o-sphere, just finding interesting stuff is hard. If there is a carnival for a topic you are interested in, following that carnival is a great way to learn what bloggers are saying about that topic. If you are blogging on that topic, the carnival is the place to share your work with like-minded bloggers.

Blog Carnival is the place to come to find carnivals you are interested in, to submit your blog articles to carnivals where they belong, and to organize and maintain carnivals.

It takes a village, you might say. Although it is possible for one person to do everything it takes to make a Blog Carnival, the work is usually divided up like this:

• The Organizer starts the carnival, decides what it will be about, what the submission criteria are, and how often it will appear. They also coordinate who will host each edition of the carnival. As time passes, they find new volunteers to host. Organizers use Blog Carnival to manage the schedule of who is hosting what and when, so they can present it to their audience in a single, well-known place.
• The Host volunteers to host a carnival edition on their blog. They work with the organizer to pick a date that suits them (popular carnivals schedule their hosts for months in advance). In the period leading up their scheduled date, they collect submissions from bloggers, and organize them into a single article chalk-full of links, often with their own comments. This article is published on the scheduled date, and everyone leaves comments on their blog telling them what a great job they did (well, usually, anyway).
• Bloggers who have written an article on the carnival's topic can submit the link for inclusion in the next edition of the carnival. Often, bloggers who contribute to carnivals are experts in their field (or at least, highly opinionated!). Blog Carnival has a carnival submission form for each carnival that bloggers can use to submit links to selected posts to a carnival host. All the blogger needs to know is the name of the carnival, and Blog Carnival takes care of getting it to the right person.
• The Audience consists of both bloggers and just-plain-interested readers. They come to Blog Carnival to find out if there is a carnival on a topic they are interested in, and to find out where the carnival editions have been, and where they're going to be in the future.

Nothing. The service is free. We put some advertising on some of our pages, and that offsets our costs. You're welcome to remember us in your will.

We publish a sidebar containing recent posts of our favorite carnivals. To include this on your blog, you need to add this HTML code to your sidebar:

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" 
src="http://statserv.blogcarnival.com/sidebar/recent_carn_ed.js" >
</script>

We use javascript to share many Blog Carnival features.

If you manage your blog at blogger.com or blogspot.com, you may notice an error message when you include javascript in a post. This is easy to work around.

Just type (or paste) the HTML that refers to javascript. When you're done editing your post, hit "Save as Draft" or "Publish Post". You'll see this error message:

Your HTML cannot be accepted: Tag is not allowed: <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.1">

Simply check the checkbox that says "Stop showing HTML errors for this post", and save again.

That's it! Your post has been saved.

Now, can anyone help us get Blogger to suppress that error message?

The Blog Carnival search bar searches only blog posts submitted to and accepted by a carnival edition and actual carnival editions.

If you want blog posts you submit to be included in the Blog Carnival search, you must submit your post through Blog Carnival's submission process, and your post must be accepted in a blog carnival edition. If you want your carnival edition included in the Blog Carnival search, your edition must be in the Blog Carnival index (that happens automatically if you're using Blog Carnival to manage your carnival).

For more information on Blog Carnival search, see this article.

Browse through the Blog Carnival carnival index, to find carnivals on a topic you blog about. Click on the name of the carnival to see its profile page. The profile page for each carnival has a description that tells you what the carnival is about, and several pointers that you can read.

You'll see that many carnivals have a "homepage" that the carnival's organizer has written. It is often a blog article that describes the carnival's topic, submission guidelines, and hosting schedule.

The other thing you might want to do is read through past editions of the carnival that are listed on the profile page. That will give you an idea of what other bloggers in that carnival community are talking about.

Every blog article has a unique web address called its Permalink URL.

In order for Blog Carnival to point to a specific blog article, we need the web address which, over time, will continue to point directly to that one blog article. Your blogging software includes a link next to each article that points to this web address. It is called a Permalink URL.

For example, the Permalink for an article in our blog "News from around the World" is

http://news.blogcarnival.com/archives/2005/05/example_carniva_2.html

http://news.blogcarnival.com

How do you find the permalink for an article? Each blogging software package is a bit different, but there are a few common approaches.

• At the end of the article, there is a link that is labeled "link" or "permalink". It is sometimes labeled "#". Hold your mouse over the links, and you may see a small popup that explains that that link is the permalink.
• At the end of the article, there is a message that says "Posted by Joe at 8:25am." Lots of bloggers use the URL under the time as the permalink.
• Sometimes, the article title itself is a hyperlink, in which case it is typically the Permalink for that article.

When you have the permalink URL, copy and paste it onto the submission form. Step back and wait a moment; in most cases, the subsequent fields (e.g. the name of the blog, the title of the article) will be filled in automatically.

The submission deadline of the upcoming edition has probably passed, even though the edition hasn't been posted yet.

You can go ahead and submit your blog article anyway. We'll send it to the carnival organizer, and when they have organized a new edition, they'll have your submission in hand.

Carnival organizers and hosts should check this edition field carefully. After the deadline, if there is no "next edition", submissions get forwarded to the default carnival address. This allows you to hold onto the submissions until you know who the next host will be.

The Blog Carnival web site has a web page for every carnival it knows about (example), and it also has a page for every carnival edition it knows about.

For past editions (example), which have already been published, the most important thing is a link to the carnival article posted on your blog.

For upcoming editions (example), the most important things are:

• the name and URL of the host blog,
• the submission deadline when we stop taking submissions for this edition,
• the scheduled posting date on which it is scheduled to be posted, and
• the e-mail address to which submissions should be forwarded.

Note: we don't put these (or any) e-mail addresses on any public web page, and our Blog Carnival Submission Form (example) supports spam prevention.

When you create a carnival using our web site, or claim a carnival that we have already entered, you can:

• enter and update the carnival information presented on your carnival's archive page,
• customize the Blog Carnival Submission Form (example) for your carnival,
• set the e-mail address where where submissions get forwarded (you can have one address for the carnival, or a separate address for each edition),
• create links and logo buttons (example) that you can use to direct readers to your archive and to your customized submission form, which you can place in your blogroll, on your carnival posts, or on your car bumper.

You can also use the Blog Carnival Edition Widget that we create automatically for each carnival. The Widget provides information on a carnival, its past editions, its upcoming editions, and link for bloggers to submit posts. The Widget is javascript you can insert on a blog sidebar or a website to market and administer your carnival. Some carnivals use the widget in their carnival homepage. We suggest you place the widget in as many places as possible to keep your community of bloggers up-to-date, and to drive traffic to your carnival. Click here for more information on the Blog Carnival Widget.

The Blog Carnival team has already added a number of carnivals that we have found (or that people have told us about). If you are the person who is organizing this carnival, just tell us, and we will assign it to your account. Once that is done, you can update it yourself.

We've seen a lot of carnivals come and go.

One of the main features of Blog Carnivals is that they get published on a more or less regular basis. If we notice that a carnival organizer has not mentioned a date for the next edition of their carnival, and has not published a new edition in a while (e.g. a weekly carnival hasn't published in a month, a monthly carnival has not published in a quarter), we'll contact the organizer and, if we don't hear back, we'll mark it inactive.

You can still search and browse the old editions of inactive carnivals, but we won't accept submissions for them.

Carnival organizers: if you want to re-activate an inactive carnival, just add a listing for an upcoming edition and then tell us to activate it.

Of course, when you host a carnival, you want lots of people to send you submissions, and the most obvious way to ask bloggers for submissions is to post a blog article: a "call for submissions" (example).

Note that this blog article refers to a specific carnival edition (i.e. "next week's edition is all about widgets! Submit your posts on widgets by next Sunday!"). The carnival organizer probably also has an article that describes your carnival in general, and perhaps tells people what and how to contribute, but that should go into the Blog Carnival archive as your "Carnival Homepage", not a particular edition's "Call for Submissions".

How does Blog Carnival help? When you record an upcoming edition at Blog Carnival, there is a field for you to put the permalink of a "Call For Submissions" article (it might be on the blog of the carnival organizer, or of the host of the particular edition; it doesn't matter).

Put a sentence in bold font at the end of your call for submissions. Here's an example:

Of course, you have to change the links and carnival names to point to your carnival. Most Blog Carnival link URL's end in a number; just look at your carnival page, and use the number for your carnival.

Also use the Blog Carnival Widget to help attract submissions and readers.

It's your turn to host a carnival on your blog, and you've created a fabulous round-up of links to your fellow bloggers. How do you get that listed at Blog Carnival?

1. Sign up! In order to add or edit listings at Blog Carnival, you need to have an account.
2. Find your carnival. If you're carnival is not listed, and you are the organizer for this carnival, Simply add it. (Now, don't confuse the listing for a carnival with the listing for an edition of a carnival!)
3. Log in! When you log in, you'll see all the carnivals and editions you can edit. Click on the carnival name (example). You'll see a list of past editions, followed by a list of upcoming editions.
4. Is your edition already listed? There are many ways editions get listed, so your edition may already be here. Review the list of past editions, and see if your edition is at the top of the list. If it is, you can check to see if the listing is correct, in which case you're done.
5. Is there an upcoming edition listed? Look at the list of upcoming editions. Is yours in it? If so, click on the edit button, and change the edition from "upcoming" to "already posted". You can then enter the Permalink URL (what's that?) of your edition on to the form, then adjust the remaining fields.
6. Otherwise, click on Add a new carnival edition, check off "already posted", and enter the Permalink URL.

If you are unable to edit your carnival or edition, contact us. We'll help you fix it.