Candles, incense, bells and ashes: Redeeming The Carnival of Real Estate . . .

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I’ve been very gratified by all the comments we’ve had, both public and private, about raising the standards for The Carnival of Real Estate. We did what we did because we were behind the wheel. We had control of the Carnival for this one week, and it would have been difficult and unseemly to take it away from us. But we didn’t know, going in, if we were going to incite admiration or riots — or simply indifference. Cathleen and I have the advantage of being stridently devoted to doing what we think is right, damn the consequences, but we really do hope to make an enduring change in the way this competition is judged.

No, this is not rocket science, brain surgery, world peace or any other presumptively momentous endeavor deployed fallaciously to diminish every smaller endeavor. But anything worth doing is worth doing well, wisely, completely, coming as close as we can attain to the sublimely perfect. Excellence is ennobling, and to make a habit of excellence is to lead a noble life. And as far from the earth-shakingly momentous as a Carnival of Real Estate entry might be, is is nevertheless a piece of your life — whether you are the writer or the reader — an irreplaceable portion of all the forever you will ever have. Whyever would you waste it?

Even so, the test of all this, going forward, will be what ZillowBlog — owner of The Carnival of Real Estate — elects to do, and then how each hosting weblog interprets any rules ZillowBlog might lay down. Practically speaking, nothing may change, and I am ordinarily a proud advocate of changing nothing. But if nothing changes in the rules and standards of the Carnival, what will change is the quality of the entries. Bad work drives out the good. If people who are thoughtful, talented and assiduous know that they will be held as the nominal equals of competitors who actually bring nothing to the competition, they will stop entering. The Carnival will come to be seen not as the harbinger of excellence but of its opposite.

That sounds like a fate worth avoiding, doesn’t it?

Here are some ideas I have for better, tighter rules. The first objective of these rules should be to dissuade people from making substandard entries. But since people are apt to view their own work very forgivingly, the second purpose of these rules should be to make it easy for the judges at the hosting weblog to eliminate those substandard entries with dispatch, leaving more time for serious consideration of serious efforts.

And by serious, I don’t mean dour. Our favorite this week was light-hearted, even whimsical. But, even so, it was about real estate, and my feeling is that, at a minimum, a worthy entry should be about the real estate industry, very broadly defined.

I think there should be no more than one accepted entry per weblog. Advance coordination might be a problem, so the judges can decide which should survive, if more than one is entered.

In the same way, there should be no more than one accepted entry for an individual weblogger. If an entry consists of more than one post, I’m presumptively impressed in advance. But if a writer lodges more than one entry out of sheer exuberance — or exuberant cluelessness — only the best one of those should be considered.

We eliminated everything that we considered to be too short to be of value. It is certainly possible to develop an important idea in few words, but what we saw again and again were undeveloped ideas — things that could have been great, but ended up being nothing at all. A minimum length limit is not the answer — too long is even worse, if the idea isn’t going anywhere. But establishing a standard that a post express an idea that is fully realized by that post is not setting the bar too high.

In the same respect, we eliminated anything that consisted of nothing but straight reporting. Why? Because the writer brings nothing to it. I might make an exception for a thoroughgoing detailing of a difficult topic, but if a post is just a weather report, so to speak, I don’t see it as a matter of pressing importance.

At the other end of the quality scale — and here the standards become more nebulous — we were hugely impressed by entries that advanced the larger debate significantly. I’m very aware that this is right where we live at BloodhoundBlog, but I think this is the best, most important work The Carnival of Real Estate can do — to showcase divergent points of view of matters of very great importance.

As I reported, we were very serious about clarity and style. These are subjective considerations, obviously, but the lack of clarity, particularly, is pretty easy to identify. Style is even more evanescent, but, when it’s there, it’s like the dawning of a cloudless day. I think it matters, and I think it should be rewarded. Style is the difference between a yeoman effort and a work of the mind that you carry with you all the way to the grave.

Note two important topics absent from this list: Spelling and grammar. In truth, I am an insufferable bastard on these points. But webloggers are writers second, not first, and many only recently. If I can’t decipher what you have written, we have a problem. But if you mangle a spelling or dangle a participle or misunderstand the jussive subjunctive or if — like me — you use various connecting devices to craft sentences longer than the thread of time itself, I won’t hold this against you. Teach me, move me, amuse me, improve me, delight me with your insights or deliver me to a world unforeseen and I won’t sweat the small stuff.

On the presentation side of things, as you saw, we paced exposition of the winning entries over two days. It occurred to me to put the absolute best entry in a post all its own on the first day, the second six on the second day and the next twelve on the third day. Neither procedure would be convenient for weblogs linking to the Carnival, but the hosting weblog could — as we did — create a Carnival of Real Estate category for linking purposes. Our goal was to provide meaningful exposure for the entries, so that people would take the time to look at each one. In the same way, we made a point to stay out of the way this week, so that each day’s winners were always at the top of the page.

I expect there are other things I’ve missed. I entreat you to correct the defects in my knowledge. It’s not the end of the world if The Carnival of Real Estate should become enmired in dozens of marginal entries. But excellence is a standard worth upholding, and with a few minor changes and a modicum of thoughtful application, we can make entry into and success in The Carnival of Real Estate a matter of enduring achievement.

And that sounds like a destiny worth embracing, doesn’t it?

More: Carnival of Real Estate: Overture…, Carnival of Real Estate: The red meat…, Carnival of Real Estate: Creams and cheeses…

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