the guardian weblogging competition

Seems to have a lot of people in a tizzy at the moment. Simple really either enter it or don’t. I personally am not entering [for reasons too numerous to mention here] but am not against others entering if they want.
I think though they ‘The Guardian’ are at a distinct advantage as they are getting paid to run their blog during work time – the rest of us fit it into breaks and out of office hours. I don’t think many of us need encouraging to spend more time online either.
People keep talking about the weblogging community but you know in real life communities people don’t always agree and not everyone enters competitions and not everyone shops in the same store…
Surely we can manage to cope with some people entering and others not entering. Besides I am fairly sure whoever wins will be buying a round at the next big blogmeet so in the end we will all get a share of the winnings.

Want to increase your traffic?

Need extra traffic? Want to be linked to more? Well then the sure fire way is to give a weblog award. You can be sure everyone will link to you then – even if it is only for the duration. Which is exactly what the Guardian weblog is doing.
Of course they could have opted for a poll but do you really want to know the answer to “what section of the Guardian are you?”
The burning question I have is what criteria do you use to judge? Style, content or popularity? Will it really upset the already defined hierarchy of uk weblogs? I mean there is one. You can tell by the links. Some people have to exist on your link list. Or is that just me being a cynic?