Apparently Naruto didn't get enough people offering to write it last year and so was dropped from the qualifying fandoms list. (Only two people offered for it last year.)

What annoys me was that this was done without any warning before the sign ups went live, so apparently there is no way to change that now.

It's frustrating, because I know out 4-6 people on my flist alone who are interested in doing it, and I can't imagine how many would write for it after one post one chuunin or avatar_fans.

I definitely think there is some skewing going on with it occurring within a kind of core fan group that likes these certain fandoms, where people find out about it via word-of-mouth, so it's very insular.

I'm really disappointed that I don't get to play, though.