First of all, I'm very curious what conclusion you'll come to regarding the upvoting business :) But more importantly, the contest! I've been mulling over the rotating judge 'issue' and I'm thinking we should invite from our list of regulars who always enter the contest. I think they'd appreciate seeing the flip side to this whole thing.
Generally speaking though, I love the path this contest has taken; everyone participating has made it awesome ... from judges, participants, sponsors ...everyone, including you lol :)
There are more then a few that would make great judges and I'd love to do this too. Sure you know the idea of the guest judge was to add some exposure and hopefully bring in some large upvotes for featured posts. Know that at least 1 person got a full 100% upvote last week from knircky and he was the top vote on many posts. While it's not all about the money, it's really nice seeing some people get a bigger reward for their content.
All that said it's still a great idea and one we will need to work into the rotation.
Yes, I hear what you're saying and it makes perfect sense @minnowbuilder!