If there are no rules for what can be submitted to your blog carnival, then just about anything will be submitted!  The overall quality of posts submitted to the Carnival of Debt Reduction had been going downhill a touch.  Lots of automatic carnival submission was happening through BlogCarnival.com, and I decided to cut the cord over there.  That reduced the volume quite a bit, and the folks that were submitting on-topic articles already knew about the blog carnival submission form on my site.

I decided to take things a step further and make it very clear what was to be expected of people submitting to the carnival.  I drafted a set of blog carnival rules and added a check box on the submission form that indicated that they accepted the rules.  The rules could be used as screens by the hosts.  Don’t follow the rules, and it’s an easy rejection.  It makes the host’s job much easier, which is a good thing for a carnival manager.

What I regret it that I didn’t do this a long time ago.  My aunt, who was a health teacher, always said that it’s far easier to be strict at the beginning than it is to get stricter later.  The Best of Money Carnival started things off on the right foot with very clear rules.  Hosting that carnival was a breeze, and I hope that hosts of my carnival find it just as easy.

• Dealing with spammy submissions As a blog carnival gets more popular, the number of submissions goes up, and the traffic the carnival gets goes up as well.  This is good.  Unfortunately, this popularity also attracts posts that are of marginal quality or are highly commercial.  Or, people will submit several posts to a single......
• Theme your blog carnival to get readers to stay The 83rd Carnival of Homeschooling, featured on the homepage of BlogCarnival.com, wrapped the posts up in a check-up theme.  This was very effective and made the carnival a pleasure to read.Bulletized lists are all right, and they serve their purpose, which is to provide links to the on-topic submitted articles......
• Dealing with off-topic posts as a host Since it's very easy to submit posts to blog carnivals, the "barrier to entry" for the submitter is pretty low.  This can be a pain for the person hosting a carnival, since the host has to wade through a bunch of irrelevant submissions as the blog carnival is being assembled.As......
• A quick roll-your-own carnival submission form BlogCarnival.com has become an integral part of many blog carnivals.  They were down for about a week with database maintenance.  I know that this was probably quite hectic for them as well as for all of the carnival managers that depend on the features it brings to the table. A......

• Digerati Life has posted the carnival! Silicon Valley Blogger at The Digerati Life has posted this week's Carnival of Debt Reduction in a cool question-and-answer format!The personal debt reduction stories and first-hand experience with debt reduction are the main types of posts that I had in mind when I started the carnival, so among the great......
• The New Money Hackers Blog Network As many of you may know, Pinyo from Moolanomy has taken a sweet new job. The new job entails giving up running the Money Hackers Network. Well, good news. The Money Hackers Network has some new blood...specifically. Me. I started blogging back in January of 2007, when I had hit......
• Blueprint For How To Make Money With A Blog: Money Making Ideas, Optimizing Your Site And Helpful Site Tools Making Money From My Blog - More Than Just Adsense Last time in the "Blueprint For How  To Make Money With A Blog" series we looked at some hints to creating good content, ways to make sure your site has good SEO, and tips for promoting your content.  This time,......
• MBH.com is hosting two carnivals next week The Carnival of Debt Reduction and the Festival of Frugality will be here next week! This is a fun part about being a personal finance blogger ... reading all of the great posts submitted to the carnivals!  I'm looking forward to reading your best stuff! The easiest way to submit......