[chaosprime]

Is "Payment/donations accepted, rewarded in-game" an inaccurate description of Threshold's payment model? If so, how?

I don't think there's a lot of point in basing our criteria on what liars will do. If that's an argument against one set of criteria, it's an argument against any other. To my way of thinking, the point is to make sure that an admin acting in good faith knows what option to select for his MUD, that these options provide clear and useful distinctions for players, and, as much as is feasible, that the admin doesn't feel pressured to select a category that may be misleading.

Faced with "pay-to-play", "pay-for-perks", "donations unrewarded in-game", and "no money at all" as selections, I don't believe that anyone acting like a grown-up is going to have a problem figuring out what to click on.

The case you describe of the guy who sells t-shirts that come with XP every Thursday and selects "unrewarded donations" is simple: he's wrong. It's not the fault of the categories, because the categories describe his situation unambiguously; he has simply selected the wrong one.