Bigwig from "Silflay Hraka" has published a list of weekly best blog articles (self-judged). Bigwig had this great idea of asking bloggers what they thought were their best articles. He then reads the articles and publishes once a week the ones he liked - he calls this the "Carnival of the Vanities":

How many times have you published a really good post, something that you thought was a finely crafted model of trenchant wit and amusing scholarly insight, only to have it sink into the vast waters of the blogosphere with barely a ripple? How many times have you thought that here at last is something that will get me a bit of recognition from the blogerati, only to be wrong? I think that this happens to almost all bloggers, big and small. Sometimes it's just timing. If you put up a really good post about your kid or some arcane bit of knowledge on the same day that Britney Spears assassinates Yasser Arafat, it's not to get the attention it would have otherwise deserved. Sometimes there is no good explanation, as the child of your mind sits there, ignored, a wallflower at the school dance, while everyone around you dances with the popular kids.

Frustrating, isn't it? Don't you just want to find the nearest water tower, climb up and start taking potshots? I know I do, and I've got at least a half-decent record at attracting attention from my betters. The problem is that there is no proven acceptable way of saying Hey you lot, take a look at this! And admit, you know you want them to. Blogging, if nothing else, is the bleeding edge of vanity publishing. If you didn't think you had something valuable to say, you wouldn't be doing this. [...]

So I have a request, one that I think might go a ways towards solving both problems. If you think you have a good post, e-mail me the link. I'll read it, and once a week, I'll link to the ones I've gotten. It'll be an index of what you and other bloggers think is their best stuff. At the worst, you'll be exposed to Silflay Hraka's crowd, such as it is. What will likely happen is that people who are looking for stuff to link to, but might not have a lot of time, will drop by, find something that interests them, and link to it. Your memes are guaranteed exposure, and the more people that participate, the more people will pop by to take a look.

This week, Bigwig was kind enough to include my article "Land for War" in the Carnival, click here for this week's full Carnival list.

The Carnival of the Vanities is published every Wednesday at Silflay Hraka and Blog Critics. Information on how to join the Carnival is available here.

Posted by David Melle
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