
To all those who enjoy the Biblical Studies Carnivals and care what is represented in them I encourage you to go over to Daniel McClellan’s site and post or email him your suggestions. I may send some links, but I won’t be hosting any more carnivals.
I know this topic has come up in the past and I want to emphasize that I am not doing this in a huff or out of anger (although it is out of frustration). In fact, I feel that, for me, the BS Carnival is both more relevant and less useful all at once. When we began, some of us 7+ years ago, there were just a handful of bibliobloggers. Then there were dozens and we needed some way to keep up, a nice summary of what was shaking in the bibliobloggersphere. But now we have hundreds and there is no way to keep up.
The BS Carnival is a helpful, handy collection of links to some of what is going on in the biblioblogging world. But it is not representative. I don’t see how it can be. It is always what the host has read or gathered by suggestions. As we saw last month, when none of the suggestions are from a particular group then it runs the risk of seeming biased. (It is true, there were almost no blog posts on exegetical matters, aside from translational issues. You never want to tick off exegetes.)
So while I will be reading and will link to the monthly carnivals since I do find them useful, I will not be volunteering to host them in the future. Which is also a good thing since it will allow others to host and bring their own perspective and selection to the mix.
The Carnival is dead, long live the Carnival!
5 thoughts on “Suggestions for the August Biblical Studies Carnival (and why I am out)”
Sorry to hear this, no one can please everyone, and as you say the phenomenon being covered is now so huge that the lists of people being left out get huger (if there is such a word) month by month. Way back when I did a carnival the task was already too big. I half wonder if the minthly host should rather focus on one narrow(ish) area and try to make sure that a good variety are covered in the year…
An interesting idea, Tim. Pick a theme that crosses disciplinary boundaries and highlight as much as they can within that theme? That would bring a bit more of each host’s personality to the carnival, but they would also probably want to highlight significant events that might not have fit into that theme.
Anyone else have thoughts?
Chris says:
“You never want to tick off exegetes.”
I take that as an invitation.