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Reading through, I skipped from page 3 to 6 to interject my humble opinion, so forgive me.
Personally, I think it is unethical for anyone who could otherwise afford advertising to participate in a contest meant to generate free advertising for those who cannot afford it.
I also believe it would be a good idea to force every mud listing to specify free or p2p.
However, I do not believe, in my humble opinion, that the purpose of the ranking contest is to generate free advertising for those who cannot afford it. I would assume that the purpose is to generate bragging rights for whoever makes the Top 10. Free advertising in the way of visibility is just a nice side effect.
If this is true, then I fail to see how p2p muds are behaving unethically by participating in the ranking contest. How does the fact that your players pay to play give you an advantage over someone who's players do not pay? I can see no way that money affects this, unless you are paying your players to vote, which is against the rules, no?
The only issue that I might see as unbalancing is the number of players your mud has, although as a popularity contest, this is sorta the idea. But I can understand some people with a small player base may feel they have no chance of competing. Which is why I offer the following suggestion:
What about offering several Top 10s (or maybe Top 5s), each one for a different player size catagory. Top 10 small player base, Top 10 medium player base, Top 10 large player base. Much like how high school football has different classes. And then list the 3 winners (1 from each catagory) most prominently.
Yagi
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