Thursday, June 11, 2015

Havel Havelim and the Future of Blog Carnivals...

First of all, please check out the latest, and hopefully not really last, Havel Havelim hosted by Tzivia of multiple blogs.

I find it rather ironic, that while more and more people are asking to join our facebook page, fewer and fewer are volunteering to host, and it is becoming rare for the bloggers whose blogs are included, to even comment a thank you or blog about the blog carnival.

Havel Havelim is a weekly international Jewish and Israeli blog carnival. It was started by Soccer Dad, who no longer maintains a blog, though I occasionally see him writing.

A blog carnival is a "round up" of blog posts, like an internet magazine. Many, like Havel Havelim, float from blog to blog, but of late HH has been hosted mostly by myself and sometimes combined with the monthly Kosher Cooking Carnival, which also suffers from a dearth of volunteer hosts. It also has a facebook page.

To summarize:

  • I still love to blog.
  • I miss the feeling of community that once existed among Jewish bloggers all over the world.
  • I am willing at this point to continue hosting and trying to promote both Havel Havelim and the Kosher Cooking Carnival. 
  • I would love your comments and opinions. 
  • I would love to get links of your favorite active Jewish blogs, general, Israeli and kosher food ones.  Please send them to shilohmuse@gmail.com, thanks.
  • If you'd like to try hosting one of the carnivals, I'll help you, thanks.
You don't have to be a blogger to read, comment and share blog carnivals!!

2 comments:

rutimizrachi said...

I haven't hosted in a while -- and because of that, I also haven't submitted anything. (Hosts sometimes are over-the-top nice, and add one of my posts anyway. But I don't believe in submitting posts if I'm not helping with the hosting.)

Hosting for me was time-consuming, because I liked to read each post carefully, and write something about it that would cause a reader to be intrigued enough to choose to read the post. But I am trying to do too many things right now to even blog often, much less do a credible job sifting through and featuring other people's writing. Also, for me, the feedback was not overwhelming. So it's a lot of work (when you do more than just list links) for little return. I just can't right now.

I'm not trying to be negative. I also miss the JBloggers' community. Remember the JBloggers' conventions?! Great experiences! But if we're having to force it, perhaps it's time to just let it rest for a while, until people feel they can't stand to NOT have it, and it can be reborn.

In the meantime, I gain some camaraderie from just poking my head into the Havel Havelim Facebook page -- but perhaps you could make membership contingent on participation. I would surely understand that.

Batya said...

Ruti thanks for taking the time to write your thoughts. I davka don't think that being more exclusive will bring people. I want to bring in more and more.

Please send me links to your favorite blogs.