Monday, July 18, 2011

Closing up shop

Well, it's time to put this blog carnival down. I know that I said I'd keep it going until the end of the year, and that I was looking for someone to replace me as host, but there's really no point. Though there were a few Boneyards that had a good response from submitters, they're progressively been harder and harder to attract attention to. The point of a blog carnival is that it should be crowd-sourced by a motivated group of bloggers, but this has never happened for the Boneyard.

This is probably because the paleo-blogging community is just not large enough to sustain it. If it was, I imagine that it would be easier to get submissions because the visibility would be higher. Considering this, and that the Boneyard has never managed to do its job (sending meaningful traffic to submitter blogs), I think I'm done with having the monthly call for submissions and apologies to hosts for all the work they'll have to do putting the month's edition together. My life is about to radically change when I begin school, and this carnival's rightful place on my rankings of things that deserve my attention will fall pretty low. I'd wager that the weekly Mesozoic Miscellany roundups I do at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs send more meaningful traffic to more bloggers.

Thanks to everyone who hosted and submitted over the last year or so. I'd apologize to the hosts who lined up for the rest of the year's editions, but it's probably a favor to them.

I don't end this with bitterness. It was a good way to learn about this particular aspect of blogging communities. It's simply not for this particular one, in my opinion. If you think differently, and would like to take this over, I won't stand in your way. It's just not for me anymore.

5 comments:

  1. Sadly I'm not surprised.

    Good effort though my friend! It seriously was an epic attempt!!!

    I think the lack of "population" is definately an issue, but more so is the turn over in these few blogs. I can't get over how many abandoned blogs are in my subscription feed. We've seen something like a 100-200% turn over in palaeo-blogs since I started blogging 5 years ago (and Traumador has entered these all too quiet ranks for the time being :( ).

    It is next to impossible to organize people who either weren't there before or are now gone...

    Perhaps it was time for this virtual endeavour to go extinct, and leave room for something else to evolve...

    Cheers for your efforts, and here is to figuring out a sustainable future for the palaeo-blogosphere!

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  2. Well, I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. I made it on here once, and that was it.

    Well, I am sorry it did not work out. Like Traumador said, maybe something thematically similar will rise up in its place. Paleontology is an utterly fascinating subject, and it deserves a method of relaying information to the layman.

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  3. Thanks, guys. We'll see what happens. I think the problem is that, as much as we love it, paleontology isn't an "urgent" science. it doesn't have the direct effect on life that medicine, biotech, ecology, etc. have. So those thriving blogospheres can sustain carnivals and it can be a useful thing to helping smaller blogs rise in stature.

    I think the key for paleo blogging is pretty simple. People devoted to quality, blogging consistently, linking to each other, being generous.

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