Hosting guidelines

There are two main styles of hosting: a more “straightforward” one, and a more “exuberant” one.

The straightforward way of hosting a Carnival involves posting the link of every entry you have received (after having screened all entries for spam, or off-topic posts), as well as a quote from the entry, or a short summary of what the entry is all about.

The other style is more literary. You can go deep into parody, you can create dialogues, you can pretty much go crazy – but as usual, this post also needs to include links to all entry you have found to be acceptable for the Carnival.

For this Carnival, I suggest you screen out any posts that are:

• spam
• focused on health and wellness
• trying to sell us quack products

The rest is really up to your discretion.

Hosting instructions

If you are interested in hosting the Medicine 2.0 Carnival, there are only a few simple steps you need to take to be added to the hosting list. Here is what you will need to do.

• Check the carnival’s listing on blogcarnival.com, and see which days are available for hosting. The Carnival will be generally hosted twice a month (on Sundays), and the submission deadlines will generally be on the previous Saturday. For example, if a carnival is supposed to be up on April 13, the submission deadline will be on April 12.
• Contact me (berci.mesko at gmail.com) if you would like to host an edition.
• If I have approved you as a host, you will be added as a host on blogcarnival.com, and you will be receiving submissions to the e-mail you provided.
• Two days before your edition, I will send you dozens of submissions as well.

How are you going to be hosting a successful Carnival? Here are a few more guidelines for prospective hosts:

• Two weeks before the Carnival is supposed to be up, publish a post on your blog indicating:
  • the name and edition number of the Carnival
  • the date when the Carnival will be posted
  • the submission deadline
  • a link to the blogcarnival form for submitting posts
  • a link to the next hosting blog (if known at the time)

It’s the day of the Carnival! Your Carnival is posted with “Medicine 2.0” in the title, but there are still a few things left to do:

• First of all, make sure to post a link to this site and to the next host in line at the end of your Carnival post
• As soon as the Carnival is posted, send an e-mail to all past hosts of the Medicine 2.0 Carnival including the edition and the permalink to your post, so that the past hosts will be able to publicize the post.
• Also, send an e-mail to other bloggers you know who you want to promote the Carnival to. Are you now thinking of some high-ranking blogs? So am I. Sometimes they are kind to you, sometimes they are not, but it is worth a try.

I will promote your edition on my blog; on blogcarnival.com, reddit.com, digg.com, twitter.com and many more. And don’t forget to have fun during the whole process!

(Many thanks to Steppen Wolf for the text.)