A few people have suggested giving some misc. categories (45 and 31 star mainly, but possibly others) another chance on the leaderboards. They were previously on the leaderboards but removed because of inactivity.

I personally think there's very little reason for having categories on the leaderboards (even under misc.) if the leaderboards aren't being used. 45 and 31 star are both unpopular and illegitimate, pointless categories. However, I also think that a category absolutely deserves a spot if runners will make the leaderboard active, regardless of whether it's a joke category or not, and I see no reason to not at least give these categories a trial period.

The biggest downside to doing this is that it potentially opens the door for other shit categories. Like, I do All Coins, and I see no valid reason why 45 star is a more legitimate category than All Coins. If 45 star is on the leaderboards, then I absolutely want All Coins to get a chance as well.

So, where does it stop? If a category only needs to be popular and semi-legitimate in order to justify a spot on the leaderboards, then are we going to have to add shit like BST and other awful categories in order to remain consistent?

Thoughts?

edit: oh there was also some discussion about moving 1 star, maybe 16 star to misc. if we did add misc. categories

There's been some discussion in the discord regarding adding/removing other platforms to the SM64 leaderboards. I'm curious to see what everyone's thoughts are on this.

A few things that seem obvious:

PROS:

-Encourages competition. Version differences are a really unfortunate part of speedrunning in regards to competition. Competition has always been a huge, important part of SM64 speedrunning. Officially encouraging everyone to play on the same version will make the game more competitive and hopefully make players want to work harder to get better.

-Removes ambiguity. Lots of runners, especially from other communities, already see emulator and VC as being less legitimate than N64, and this would make that official. No more long explanations explaining how our leaderboards work.

-Removes clutter. The VC and EMU leaderboards simply do not have the same number of active runners that the N64 leaderboard does, and given past precedent of removing categories and denying iQue a place on the leaderboard based on lack of activity, it seems to follow that VC and EMU should also be removed. This will make the leaderboards much more streamlined and easier to understand for the casual speedrun fan.

CONS:

-Exclusionary. There's no doubt that many, many people get into speedrunning SM64 because of the availability of emulator, and without a leaderboard for that version this would possibly discourage new runners from picking up the game.

-Unfair to current runners. The status quo for the past several years has been that N64, VC, and emulator are all technically equal but separate versions, and that it is up to the individual player to decide which version they would prefer to play on. Many have decided to stick with emulator or VC. Removing the leaderboard that they have chosen to compete on (even if that competition isn't as tough as N64) doesn't seem to be fair to those players, who are every much a part of the community as the N64 players.

All opinions are welcomed and encouraged, but please be respectful.