Kill The "Anything Goes And General News" Carnival And Put The Rest Of Us Out Of Our Misery

This past week I had three different people whining about the concept of blog carnivals and complaining that they don't work.

That came after I decided to give the "Anything Goes and General News" carnival one last chance to evolved into something it has never been. Chalk that up as a bad decision made while eating mescaline.

I've entered the "Anything Goes and General News" Carnival a number of times. In fact, I've participated in a lot of carnivals {over the past three years} both before and since starting The Gonzo Blog Carnival Series; to become well acquainted with the process and to learn how not to do it.

The "Anything Goes and General News" Carnival is a good one to study if you want to know how not to put together a carnival.

Granted, there are a number of ways to do a carnival badly.

Carnivals that try to establish themselves as some sort of elitist gathering by selecting the posts they'll include based on "quality" or limiting the number of entries they'll accept have never done anything other than make me want to vomit.

I don't know who they're kidding, but I suppose it fulfills some sense of need they have or fills a void in their life.

"Anything Goes and General News" isn't one of those sort of carnivals. Not by a long shot. This carnival will take any post on any subject from any blogger who wants to participate. If the blogger wants to submit more than one post that's not a problem either.

In fact, if you want to write an email filled with gibberish and SPAM links you can get that in as well.

Typically "Anything Goes and General News" is nothing more than a list showing the title of a post, what blogger submitted it and what blog the post appeared in. At least if someone sends in an email that gets included it breaks up the boredom a bit.

I'd characterize "Anything Goes and General News" more as a blogospherian clusterfuck than a carnival.

Carnivals have been around for years while social media has become the WorldWideWeb's marquee draw.

Jose Aviles, the brainless twit behind "Anything Goes and General News", isn't one to miss an opportunity. So now that he's created a pain in the ass for hosts of carnivals who work hard to do it Right he's taking on social media.

Yes, in addition to an email from Jose saying the carnival was posted there was another message saying he had created the "MySpace Like" {sic} No Holds Barred Social Network.

I was drinking whiskey at the time and sent the following email to Jose...

Jose,

This carnival is the damnedest piece of shit going.

It was never good, nothing more than a list, but even those carnivals have their place. It's gone downhill, though, to the point of being among the worst carnivals going.

Why don't you put the fucking thing out of it's misery and find something else to do.

If nothing else, quit wasting my fucking time. Do you really think I, or anyone else who knows anything about social networking, is going to join a site born of this clusterfuck you call a carnival?

Ciao

He responded with the message, "Thanks" to which I responded, "Ho fucking Ho."

I haven't heard anything else from Jose.