Here's another slant on this thread.(posted 9779 days ago)Rather than "banning" the clones why not just have them linked.
ie: Record the score for whatever version of Galaga you want, and have the upload score it as a galaga Power Ranking recording regardless of whether or not it was gallag, galaga, galaganm, galagamw etc (or whatever they're called these days). Likewise for all other clones that are considered so similar to their parent game as to be insignificantly different in gameplay.
That way we keep the existing high scores for games that are "clones" without having to re-record them. Put me in for counting all versions of wonderboy as the same. Admittedly some of them are significantly harder energy wise but who cares. People will just record whichever version is the "easiest" and it will be "fair" as it will become obvious which version(s) are the easiest for any particular game.
I do agree that there are differences in some clones that significantly alter the gameplay. Perhaps an approach would be to group them for the purposes of Power Ranking leaderboard points, but keep them as separate valid entities for uploading of recordings. Keep the best of both worlds. Perhaps even have the old style leaderboard kept on some obscure link and the new style Power Ranking System as the "default leaderboard".
I think this would be better than outright banning any given version, of course it may mean a little more work for Chris when a new release of Mame comes out.
What say you fellow Marp'ers to this concept?
BeeJay.