proposal

Idea: Create a Standard/Non-Standard toggle for all categories (these names can be changed of course, but I'll continue to use them here)

"Standard" is meant to label runs which follow the current submission rules (except NTR streaming, covered below), and includes runs which are all directly comparable by virtue of being performed in typical conditions of original hardware and software. As always, some modifications which do not affect the game or run performed are allowed, such as internal capture cards and homebrew custom firmware.

"Non-Standard" is meant to be a catch-all label for any conditions which make the runs non-directly comparable to Standard, but may generally increase the accessibility of the run. This includes things like:
-Playing on emulator
-Using NTR streaming
-Using a non-standard controller remapping, or non-standard controller features (such as mapping analog input to digital input, or turbo)
(-Maybe using any controller remapping at all? This probably deserves its own separate discussion)
(-Maybe doing the run TA instead of RTA? I think I would personally say yes to allowing this)
-And generally any other modification which would not be allowed in Standard
Any submissions to Non-Standard would be required to list all of the non-standard conditions that were used for the run in the submission notes.

Any modification to the game itself is still forbidden in both Standard and Non-Standard. This includes things like cheat codes, hacked save files, and unofficial patches.

In cases that aren't clear, the mod team will reserve full discretion on whether a run can be submitted to either Standard or Non-Standard.

The Non-Standard toggle would give a visible place to any runs which cannot be directly compared to the Standard option, but still showcase most, or all, of the same underlying gameplay and gameplay skills. Since runs under the Non-Standard toggle may not be directly comparable to each other, some runners may want to create another shared place (read: google sheets) to compare these runs. As is, speedrun.com isn't a great place for that kind of fine-grained comparison, but it has the greatest visibility, so we could still use it to display these runs and link to an external location. If a particular set of rules became especially popular or competitive, we may consider highlighting them on the speedrun.com pages.