Jay Solo, originator of the venerable Carnival of the Capitalists (CotC) “traveling” weblog writes:
“I have been contemplating a ‘reboot’ of Carnival of the Capitalists for some time, on the idea of revitalizing and improving its relevance and quality. That is why I’ve allowed the list of upcoming hosts to dwindle, because what is expected of hosts will change, and their quality and discretion will need to be more consistently high.”
He goes on to enumerate how the CotC has changed over time. Jay:
“When we first started CotC, the rules and guidelines stated that a host could leave out an entry for any reason, or no reason at all. Nobody took advantage of that, and being all inclusive became the de facto and then de jure rule of hosting.
Currently the only reasons for excluding an entry are:
- It’s off-topic, where on-topic is a huge range that all too many entrants still manage to skirt.
- It’s not substantive and substantively original text by the post author.
- It’s an additional entry from the same blog the same week.
It’s considered verboten to limit the included entries the best so many entries.
It’s considered verboten to exclude everything on one topic, like not including any economics posts.
It’s considered verboten to use something like a number or letter ranking system to say what you think of the entries, even though it is acceptable to be more subtle in highlighting the best and downplaying the worst.
It’s considered verboten to exclude an entry because of the type of blog it’s from, like one you feel is “too commercial” (which would be ironic given what carnival this is).
It varies from week to week, but in general, the content of CotC is widely perceived as lower in quality than it was in the early days. I regularly field e-mails from hosts who are startled when the look at the entries so far for the week and find them to be dreck. What can they do? Can they leave out the dreck? Is there an editorial policy?”
An interesting question: Does making a community more “accessible” inevitably result in lower quality? Or are there ways to increase accessibility and at the same time not dilute the traits that gave the community value in the first place?
What do you think?
(cross posted at the future of communities blog)
photo: pantagrapher
That is an interesting question!
My take is that a lot has to do with the nature of the community.
There are communities that are formed because the people involved share a common interest in something or other. Those communities should be as open and accessible as possible, for everybody from the novice to the hobbyist to the semi-pro or professional. Everybody who shares an enthusiasm for the topic, whatever it may be, should be invited inside.
On the other hand, if you’re building a community as a professional asset to a certain set of people, then you need standards. Why? Because if you don’t have standards, then being a member of that community doesn’t mean anything, does it?
Of course, there are those who say that things like standards of quality or of professionalism are inherently elitist. I won’t even argue with that. But I also think that elitism has its place. We should have mechanisms in place to acknowledge consistent quality. Otherwise, we tacitly acknowledge instead that we don’t care about quality or we think that quality should take a back seat to inclusiveness.
Inclusiveness is nice, it’s warm and fuzzy and stuff like that, but it should be obvious to anybody in business that quality matters, too. It’s not an attitude of inclusive that will inform my decision about who gets to remove my appendix, that’s for sure.
dawn…great points! i think the last bit, in particular, is spot on. for certain things where inclusion in tantamount to a certification, there has to be some exclusivity. if not, the certification (e.g. achieving an M.D., becoming a black belt, etc.) becomes meaningless.