[Xerihae]

I think the whole argument can be answered succinctly. What does "free" or "in-game rewards/benefits" mean? Whatever the site owner decides they mean.

For the same reason that the most successful MUDs have one individual admin who is the ultimate source of what goes and what doesn't, for the same reason many successful businesses are run on a similar model, for the reason our very nature demands: One person has to make the decision, because though you may get groups of people who agree with each other, you will never reach a mutual consensus on anything.

Some people use this same argument for why you should only ever stick to immutable fact, but I'm not one of them. Though such people may mean well, it leads to other less scrupulous people getting around the spirit of a rule just because there's no absolute definition that says "Do Not Do This". Tax loopholes, people getting away with crimes because of silly things, all of these are symptoms of the same cause.

Lasher will decide what he wants and what each of these concepts mean in regards to TMS. He can (and quite obviously does) seek input from the users of this site, just like any MUD admin worth their salt at least tries to get some form of player input when adding new things to the game, but at the end of the day he's the guy sitting at the (metaphorical?) desk with the sign that says "The Buck Stops Here".