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Carnival of Expats

Trouble

Have you heard of Carnival Blogging?

The basic idea, as I understand it, is that (weekly/monthly/quarterly), various writings on topics are submitted or gathered in one place.Ìý .Ìý Every week, a new host is chosen, and they are the ones who write up the summary of those posts, with the massive link-fest that leads to other writings on the topic.

What I'm thinking is inviting various ex-pat blogs, once a week, to write on the same theme or topic.Ìý It doesn't have to be long - just a few sentences if that's what you want that week, or a long post if that's what catches your fancy.Ìý And, of course, if the topic doesn't interest you that week, you skip it.

New topics would be posted by the host on Thurday, on the host blog, which is cunning held here: .Ìý After you've written on the topic, you would drop an email to the host for that week with the URL and the trackback (if applicable).Ìý On Monday, the host would post (both in their blog and in the 'main' blog) a collection of the links for everyone to peruse.Ìý Each participant would either copy the post and put it in your blog, or just link to that post.Ìý Hopefully, we'll all drive readers towards the post, and readers will follow that to each other's blogs.
Ìý
My ultimate hope would be to get as many ½ûÂþÌìÌÃgers involved as possible.Ìý I think, because of our varied readership, we'll end up with more on board once we have a few posts under our belt.Ìý If we pimp out the whole idea at the end of each of our posts, and in the starting and finishing posts, we should have more people involved.Ìý (By each of our posts, I mean the ones specifically about the ½ûÂþÌìÌà Carnival.)

I don't know about you guys, but I started reading ex-pat blogs before I left (before I was even sure I wanted to leave!) in order to get a feel for what it was like living in a foreign country.Ìý I know that other people do that as well... in fact, I once got an email from a woman who told me I was her inspiration for moving to China (*blink!*), and I know I went overseas because I was influenced a lot by my friend Mark's experiences in Japan.Ìý I think having several blog posts from different countries and perspectives, from different expat experiences, will interest a lot of people who read our individual blogs because of that.Ìý

A brief list of possible topics includes "What did you do before you left (and how would you do it differently)?", "Write about your favorite food in your adopted country", "How do you keep in touch with home - or do you?", "What is home to you now?", "Where else would you want to live?"Ìý I'd think we can all come up with more and more interesting than that.Ìý *grin*

Thoughts?Ìý Questions?Ìý Concerns?

There is already a topic for this week, although I won't be making it "official" till Thursday: Why did you decide to move and would you do it again?Ìý It was proposed by
Hope to hear from you soon!

Anna

See also

Living abroad: the expat guideBeware of fake ETA and eVisa websites flooding GoogleI have an urgent questionHealth insuranceOld blue Book of Life
Julien

It sounds like a great initiative Anna!

Just a question, what's the difference with what we're doing on this forum? (I think I didn't get all the details -sorry I am a bit tired today-)

I am looking forward to reading the first contributions ;)

Trouble

I hope this makes sense - I'm really tired myself.Ìý (Note to self: remind friends of time difference before they make phone calls.)

There are a few differences.

The most cosemtic is, of course, that we take it to our individual blogs.Ìý Instead of writing on a forum where, although non-expat can read, sign up, and post themselves, they tend not to congregate, it would be on blogs where people who don't know about this site (or its forums) can read them.

Second, unlike a discussion, or even a poll, it's more your own reflections.Ìý If I asked here "What did you do before you left, and what would you do differently", for example, it would become a small discussion.Ìý If you reflect on that topic, and wrote about it on your blog, it would be your own thoughts, initially uninfluenced by others.

Third... I don't know about you guys, but I like readers on my blog. *grin*Ìý This would be driving readers to other blogs and the like, since there would be links from each blog back to either the Host Blog or to the other blogs that had posted on the subject.

Did that make sense?Ìý I hope so.

Added in, I'd love to see responses in other languages, but I don't write anything except English.

Tired now.

Anna

loloieg

I am not sure about the "interest" of a carnival blogging here... let me try to explain

I understand that sometimes it is interesting to have a summary of a subject when there are lots of answers wiht sometimes almost same answer many times.
I understand as well that it is sometimes interesting to take a subject of the forum and give your point of view on your blog.
But I don't understand the concept that one people of the forum should summarize a topic and talk about it on his blog.
Because people already can do that if they want ... a blog is a personal thing ... I don't get the idea that somebody asks 'you' to publish a post on a precise subject on your 'blog' ... Maybe you don't want right now, you don't have a specific point of view, you already talked about it, ... there are many reasons.
The only advantage is to have links to 'your' blog ... but there are other ways to do that. Moreover Expat-Blog would like to centralize information not to spread information into many and many blogs ...

Thank for your proposition, and maybe it will be done here if there are lots of expat-blogger that would like this idea. But if you agree, it seems that we will wait a little bit.
Don't hesitate to give other ideas to improve the website :D

PS : when I say 'you' or 'your blog', it is just a way to talk, it is not against you ;)

Julien

Anna, expat-blog would host the "carnival of expats blog" on its server with pleasure when the server will be ready :)

John C.

Trouble wrote:

Have you heard of Carnival Blogging?

Anna


Hello Trouble, :) (Ohh, I never thought I would say such thing!)

You are the first one I heard speaking about Carnival Blogging.

At one time I've heard from someone in Oscar Peterson's family (a very talented musician herself) about Art Olympics (name says it all), which of course never went beyond hair salon talk.

I wonder how many good ideas die before maturing.

Good-bye Trouble, please let me know you are in good shape. :D

HaileyinHongKong

Why would I want to write on someone else's blog?Ìý I certainly don't want other people writing on mine.Ìý Or am I completely misunderstanding this?