[Threshold]

Of course it is fair. Either you take money or you don't. I guarantee you this is what matters to the majority of players out there. They want to know if money ever changes hands between players and admins. There is nothing more basic or simple as that fact. The details of exactly what they get for that money are interesting, and important to some, but to most people they are just extraneous details.

Is a store that sells t-shirts any less of a commercial operation than a gym that sells memberships? Of course not. Web sites like Penny Arcade, Neopets, etc. make their money from selling merchandise. Are they commercial enterprises? Of course they are.

The statement that this is "not fair" gets right to the root of the problem. The MUDs that sell merchandise want a marketing advantage over other MUDs. So they want the search options changed to make them look best at the expense of other games.

It really is that simple. From the beginning, this entire issue has been a handful of admins wanting TMS changed to benefit them specifically. They wanted to choose their own label for other games, while maintaining the freedom to describe their own games however they saw fit. One of those admins even slipped up and admitted it in THIS VERY THREAD. And that is precisely why the change should NOT be made in the manner these admins are requesting.