Mela musings
Published by Yazad Jal October 14th, 2004 in Web WorldThe Bharateeya Blog Mela has been close to my heart and I’ve enjoyed hosting, participating and winning the prize. I’m not terribly happy with the way it’s going right now so time to blog my thoughts.
Firstly, I don’t like the idea of voting for the “best” post of the month. Please note, it’s not the best post, simply the most popular post. I say this not as a disgruntled loser, but as a past winner. I think it detracts from the value and pleasure of reading the various mela posts. Today, the main issue in the mela is rigging — serious or otherwise. How many of us have really read the posts up for election? I think it’s very generous of Shanti to reward the popular post, but really it is unnecessary. We’d still blog and still nominate posts to the mela without the $10. And those who do it just for $10, would generally not be worth reading.
Secondly, I think the mela host should be more proactive. Its not enough to just post the announcement and then hope for nominations to trickle it. Visit the blogosphere. Read other posts of nominated bloggers. Check out the blogrolls of various bloggers. Browse through blogstreet. I’ve done all this and more whenever I’ve hosted. The final result should be like a nice buffet to the reader of the mela.
The mela host need not be a “taker” of all nominations. Just because a post is nominated does not mean it has to be in the mela. A little editing is needed. Purely personal posts and descriptions of bodily functions of course need to be weeded out. But apart from that, I feel the mela should be a celebration, not a reportage of mediocrity. Use the scissors sparingly dear host, but do not let them rust!
Ideally, I’d like to see a mela with at least 20 if not 50 posts from the Indian blogosphere, showcased with a little commentary on each from the host. The mela will be hosted here on October 28, and dear reader, you will get what I promise. And I hope other hosts take a hint. Thanks Shanti and Ashwini for starting it all in January 2003. It’s now up to the Bharteeya bloggers to make the mela celebrations reverberate througout the blogosphere!
7 Responses to “Mela musings”
- 1 Trackback on Oct 16th, 2004 at 1:30 am
- 2 Trackback on Nov 20th, 2004 at 1:48 pm
The ‘rules’ of the Mela always stated that purely personal posts are not to be included. Apart from this, however, I do not feel that there should be any other editing.
You’re right in saying that the Mela ought to be a celebration and hence the host should inspire some enthusiasm in the blogosphere and make the Blog Mela stand out on his/her blog. I wuld like the hosts to spice up their Blog Mela with some of those excellent Mela graphics created by shanti and ashwini. It’ll give the Mela a touch of glamour. Moreover, I wonder why the hosts have stopped including a short description of the nominated posts! All we get nowadays, and I do not blame anyone in particular, is a list of nominated links with perhaps the subject of the post. The attitude of hosting a Mela only to get ‘instalanched’ should be discouraged.
1. The $10 Reward encourages rigging, which is good in one way as I encouraged so many of my friends to visit the blog mela and rig for me so that I could defeat a certain cartel member. Some of them later got into blogging.
2. But one point I agree with you and Sameer is that the host should definitely put some enthusiasm by hunting down posts from various blogs. I remember one blog mela hosted by Mahesh Shantaram which was like a newspaper. But then the burden should not be on the host alone, everyone should blog about it and create more publicity. I am guilty of not doing any of these.
Very true Yazad. 100% agreement.
I agree that it has become more about the $10 and should be discouraged. When I had hosted the Mela many months back, I had included personal posts..some of which were very good. But I did comment on the self-nomination thing. I initially thought the Mela was about nominating which posts you have enjoyed reading and not to plug your own blog. If one is that desperate to get the word out on their blog, its probably not worth reading. Good blogs eventually attract traffic.
Yaz, I am so sorry I am late in the game with this post. I cannot access hotmail from work, so I saw this just now.
I think you make some valid points and do agree that it has become a popularity contest more than the contest of the best writing. I don’t mind it as much, though. I do it for visibility’s sake so that more people hear about this and in turn the Indian side of the blogosphere gets more notice.
As for self-nominating posts, I don’t have a problem with that either. There might be blogs that are newly started or good posts that have not attracted much viewership. There is nothing wrong in letting the world know you have written something we might find interesting.
Personal posts was something we had a lot of back and forth on, if you recall. We were strictly against stuff that was like “I had donuts for breakfast and would luuuurve some Starbucks coffee now”. An example of a good personal post from the recent Mela is that of Dilip D’Souza.
As far as editing was concerned, the only reason why we discouraged it was because we didn’t want a host’s ideology to color the nominations accepted for the Mela. You cannot reject a nomination just because you don’t agree with the points it makes - other than that, I guess you have a little wiggleroom.
Finally, melas are meant for a time for fun and a little creativity. Have at it - you might even retain some of the instalanche readers once the mela is over.