But then playing an instrument would become mandatory, since all contestants are meant to be on level ground, and I'm not prepared to isolate anyone in such a manner.
Again, a problem since do I have a seperate category for song writers, lyric writers, singers and lyric writers etc. etc. or do I throw them all together? It's like comparing people doing triple jump to people doing long jump - same end, different techniques, different results, no direct comparison. I'm sure there are plenty of ways for those who do write their own musical material to show off their artisitic talents, but as you say there's not enough of them to constitute their own competition.
My main concern at the moment is that if I allow just anyone to join in then it's going to become a popularity contest (i.e. everyone will end up voting for Rye or Loony BoB or somesuch), which isn't the point. It's why I want to have some kind of pre-screening process beforehand. However if I do that on my own I'll get accused of rigging the contest or playing favourites, hence why I'd like other people with which to decide who would be able to compete. The crux of the competition is meant to be around live performing as oppose to pre-recorded stuff. Pre-recorded material can be redone again and again, be edited, mixed etc. Not that I'm saying that the people who would enter would be dishonest, but the cool idea (at least I think) of the competition would be to get people to perform live. A low-quality recording over TeamSpeak converted to mp3 wouldn't be too large to download, plus people will be more than welcome to hear people on the server itself. If however you think it would just fall flat on it's arse feel free to say so. Heaven knows that you can't start up something this big on your own, be it some faux-pas elections or nonsensical awards. That'd just be impossible.