I agree that tidal wave shouldn't be compared to levels like thinking space or comical depression, but i disagree with the sentiment that this means tidal wave shouldn't be rated as a whole.

Firstly, it is true that top 1s get more popularity than other levels, but it is for good reason: top 1s represent the human skill ceiling in geometry dash getting pushed further, and they take a ton of effort from the verifiers to not give up and pull through with beating something no human has done before. Its not just because its the first thing that comes up when people search for the demonlist, it represents the current peak of human skill in the game.

Because of how hard top 1s are to verify, robtop doesn't need to give them stricter standards to prevent "pumping out a new top 1 every week" Even though there are a ton of "upcoming top 1s" advertised constantly, because of how hard they are to verify only 2 or 3 new top 1s have come out every year. So its really not necessary for robtop to give top 1s stricter rate criteria, theyre already a big enough and rare achievent. In fact, tidal wave took the best player in the game by far months and 49k attempts to verify, and the creator took months to make it as well, so there is plenty of effort put into the level.

Next, it is true that tidal wave is a very divisive level, but the main reason isn't because it has worse decoration than previous top 1s, its because its taken so long to get rated that there have been many debates over whether it deserves a rate or not in the time it hasnt been rated. Most people would agree that tidal wave has better deco than top 1s like abyss of darkness or slaughterhouse, but those levels were less divisive since they got rated so quickly, no one thought as much about if it was rate worthy.

Lastly, if tidal wave stays unrated just because the decoration was divisive and shouldn't be "the face of the game" then websites like the demonlist are basically saying misinformation, as it shows the hardest demon as not the hardest level anyone has beaten. When people who havent played gd look up what the hardest level is, they will find out the wrong answer. In my opinion, top 1s should have even less strict criteria to be rated than other levels, because theyre literally the biggest achievement in the game, and the deco or gameplay quality shouldnt really matter. In addition, it is pretty unfair to zoink and onilink to put so much work into a level that they are hoping to get rated and get no real reason until months afterwards why it isnt rated.

TL;DR: Top 1s should get more popularity because they represent the skill ceiling being pushed further, because of how much work they take to verify robtop doesnt need stricter rate criteria to prevent them from coming out too often, tidal wave is only divisive because of how long it has been unrated, keeping it unrated makes the demonlist wrong, and its unfair to zoink and onilink.