Investigations of a Dog

How to become a host

If you’d like to host the Military History Carnival, just leave a comment or e-mail me. The only requirement is that you have a blog and know how to use it. It doesn’t have to be about military history, and you don’t need any experience of hosting a carnival. This page should tell you everything you need to know. If it doesn’t just ask me.

The carnival takes place around the middle of every month, but the exact date depends on what is most convenient for you. The date needs to be fixed before the previous carnival is posted, so that the host can give full details of the next edition. You will also need to give me an e-mail address which you want submissions sent to. This doesn’t have to be the same as your normal e-mail address. It can be a good idea to set up a temporary address just for carnival submissions.

Calls for posts

You should post calls for submission on your own blog a week or two before the carnival, and a reminder a few days before. The exact number and timing is up to you. I will also post calls for posts on the History Carnivals Aggregator and here at Investigations of a Dog. Other bloggers might post calls, but you can’t necessarily rely on it.

You need to give the date of the carnival, the e-mail address for submissions, and a link to the submission form. The address is:

http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_1281.html

This address always stays the same, and the page will automatically update itself when the host changes, so you don’t have to do anything there.

You should also make the date limits clear: the carnival covers the 20th century and everything earlier. Posts which are only or mainly about events after 1st January 2001 are not eligible. Posts should be recent, preferably posted since the previous edition of the carnival.

As well as the basic information, it helps to say something about how inclusive the carnival aims to be and how broad our definition of “military history” is. Some people who have written interesting and relevant posts might not think of themselves as military historians and might not realise that their posts can be included. We need to encourage as many people as possible to get involved.

Receiving submissions

Once the deadline for the previous carnival has passed (usually the day before it’s published) the submission form will start forwarding new submissions to the address that you specified. The e-mails will all be titled:

BlogCarnival submission - “military history carnival”

You should set up a rule/filter to move them into their own folder so it’s easier to keep track of them. It’s also a good idea to keep a copy of the information somewhere else. I usually set up a draft post in Wordpress and copy the links into it as soon as I get them. The e-mails which come via the submission form will contain all the links and other information you need, including a block of HTML code which you can copy and paste into your blog. Although I’d recommend changing the wording of the links in the final version (otherwise the carnival won’t be very interesting to read!), this code is useful for making a draft copy of carnival submissions.

Some people will send submissions direct to your e-mail address. These might contain less information, but all you really need is the permalink to the post. Make sure you have a permalink which points directly to the post in question, not the link to the blog’s main page.

You don’t need to acknowledge receipt of submissions. It’s waste of your time, and most people don’t expect a reply. They will know that their post has been included once the carnival is posted. If you find that you have to reject a submission, it’s best to avoid entering into correspondence with the person in question. Nobody has an automatic right to be included, and as host your decision is final. If anybody tries to argue about it, just ignore them.

Most carnival submissions come in the last week, so don’t worry too much if you don’t get any for a while. I will also submit some of my own picks, but you don’t have to use them.

Finding more posts

Don’t rely on getting enough submissions to make a whole carnival edition. You will probably have to look for some more posts yourself. The Cliopatria blogroll is the best place to find history blogs. Don’t limit yourself to the “Wars and Warriors” category. There will be many relevant posts in blogs under other categories. You might know of some other places to find good blogs. Use your imagination. We don’t want the carnival to always include the same blogs, so it would be good if you can come up with anything different.

Selecting posts

As host you have the responsibility for deciding which posts to include in the carnival. You don’t have to include every submission you get if you don’t want to. However, you should be prepared to include posts whose points of view you don’t agree with. This carnival aims to be as inclusive as possible.

It’s usually best to pick only one post per blog unless someone has written some really outstanding posts. A mulit-part series of closely related posts on the same topic can be counted as one post.

Posts should have been posted since the previous edition of the carnival, unless they’re outstandingly good and have been missed before.

No more than 25% of the posts in one edition should be about the same war. Far more people are blogging about the American Civil War than anything else. So far this hasn’t caused a problem, but be prepared to cut some ACW posts if necessary to keep the carnival varied and balanced.

You should reject any post which doesn’t meet the criteria for inclusion. You don’t have to explain rejection to anyone. It’s best to avoid entering into correspondence with people who submit unsuitable posts. If you ignore them they’ll go away. If they provoke a reaction it only encourages them.

Remember that this carnival defines history as everything up to the end of the 20th century. Posts which are wholly or mainly about events which happened after 1st January 2001 should not be included. In practice you won’t be able to avoid posts which mention current events, but they should be mostly about something historical. The date limit doesn’t include publication of books, discovery of new evidence, memorialisation and anniversaries of past events etc.

Military is defined as broadly as possible. Tenuous links are fine (for example see some of the posts I included in the first edition), but posts which have absolutely nothing to do with war or armed forces should be rejected.

Posts should meet some basic standards of proof and objectivity. Do not include posts which contain serious factual errors, blatant lies, unfounded conspiracy theories, or extremist propaganda. How to define this is up to you, but you can always ask me for advice if you’re not sure about a particular post.

Putting the carnival together

The optimum size for a carnival edition is between 20 and 40 posts.

You can divide the posts up however you want, for example by period, geographic area, theme, or anything else. Or they don’t necessarily have to be in any particular order at all. Just do whatever you think looks right.

The carnival should be accessible to everyone with an interest in military history, not just academics, or hobbyists, or other specialists. Try to keep the style of your writing informal but don’t be too flippant. Treat all the bloggers included with respect, and don’t make any condescending remarks about posts you’ve included, even if you disagree with their points of view.

Use the permalinks that have been submitted (or that you’ve collected) to link directly to the posts. There’s no need to link to the main page of the blog as well as the post - it creates extra work for you and can get confusing for readers. You should also include the name of the blog and/or the blogger.

The carnival should be more than a collection of links. Try to say something about each post and why it’s interesting. This only needs to be one sentence, but try to grab the reader’s attention and draw them in. You can look at other blog carnivals for inspiration.

At the end of the carnival you should give the date of the next edition, a link to the host blog, a link to the submission form, and the e-mail address that the next host has specified for submissions. I will give you this information before the carnival date.

Posting the carnival

You should post the carnival edition on your blog on the agreed date. There isn’t any particular time when you have to publish by, and as bloggers are scattered through different time zones, dates are fuzzy around the edges. You should aim to post the edition by the end of the day in your time zone. If you’re really organized you could even put it together the day before and set the timestamp so that it appears at midnight, but you don’t have to.

Once the carnival is posted you should e-mail me to let me know, and also leave a comment on the Military History Carnival main page giving the permalink to the edition. Your work is done, and you can relax. I will take care of posting on the History Carnivals Aggregator and updating Blog Carnival.

If you host your own blog and bandwidth is an issue, you should be aware that hosting the carnival is likely to bring in between 100 and 200 extra visitors per day for a few days.

If there’s some emergency and you can’t get the carnival posted on the agreed date, let me know as soon as possible so that we can postpone it or get a subsitute host.

[Please only comment on this page if you are volunteering to host, or if you have a question which isn't answered above]