I used to run a blog carnival for a popular niche, it is amazing how many people DON’T even bother to read the basic instructions, never mind anything else. I reckoned that I threw away over 50% of my submissions for irrelevant, spam, or non-original content. Well over 50%. I then threw away another 20-30% for not having anything worth saying. In the end, out of 80 or 90 submissions, I’d only have less than ten left.
Once, one cheeky submitter didn’t read the instructions, submitted garbage, and then complained why my published newsletter didn’t include his article, but included a ping to his website. I then entered my ping rule for the carnival. But it didn’t matter how many times I tried to enforce the rule, there were those submitters who didn’t care. In the end, I gave up publishing the carnival: too much junk to wade through.
I would urge you to be strict enough to get a balance between volume & quality… but never, ever publish garbage. You’ll only make your life worse, if you do.
Kenneth