Recently in the speedrunning community, especially the Pokemon community, runners have branched out from popular categories -- such as any%, any% glitchless and 100% -- into less stressful and less optimized categories, which viewers often see as memes or "just for fun." This has resulted in many questions such as, "Is this an official/legit category?" It's not always clear what they're asking, but I think it's clear what they're seeking. They want to know whether the category is taken seriously, whether it has competition, and whether runs on PB/WR pace are anything to get excited about.

(Important note: A run being on speedrun.com does not make it any more or less official. There is simply a strong correlation between what's considered "official" and what's on speedrun.com. There are some really silly meme runs on the site, and some major omissions.)

So I've created a rating system, which I'll apply for every speedrun I've done or will do in the future. I'll rate a speedrun from 1 to 10 on how "official" it is. The higher the number, the more official. I'll use the following criteria, in order of importance:
- Number of runners
- How optimized the route is
- Quality of the top runners
- Overall quality of the runners
- How seriously the runners take their runs (i.e., doing the fastest strats rather than just what's fun for them)
- How much execution the run requires
- How much routing the run requires
- How arbitrary the goals of the category are ("beat the game" is much less arbitrary than "beat the game the same way Ash did in the anime")
- How much dumb RNG the run has

Here are my ratings for every Pokemon run I've done:

- Red glitchless: 9
- Red Classic: 7
- Red Clefable%: 3
- Red Charmander%: 3 
- Red NSC: 5
- Red Baton Pass: 4

- Yellow glitchless: 8
- Yellow Classic: 7
- Yellow Nidoqueen%: 3
- Yellow Ash%: 3

- Gold glitchless: 8
- Gold Mareep%: 3

- Crystal glitchless: 8
- Crystal Classic: 6
- Crystal Cyndaquil%: 3
- Crystal Chikorita%: 3
- Crystal Helper any%: 1 (video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbOigmhfBMk)

- Sapphire: 8

- Emerald glitchless: 8
- Emerald any%: 5
- Emerald Torchic%: 3
- Emerald Treecko%: 3
- Emerald All Gold Symbols: 7

- Fire Red any%: 7
- Fire Red Charmander%: 5
- Fire Red Bulbasaur%: 3
- Fire Red Round 2: 7

- Colosseum: 7

- XD: 7

- Trifecta (Red/Gold/Sapphire): 4

- Crystal Clear any%: 5
- Crystal Clear starter%: 5
- Crystal Clear Igglybuff%: 2

Here are my ratings for every non-Pokemon run I've done:

- Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories: 6
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories female%: 3 
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories sun chicken%: 2 
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories Pumpking%: 2

- Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories: 5

- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (All Trials): 6

- Grief Syndrome any% Madoka: 5
- Grief Syndrome 1000 laps: 2