Diminishing retention rates

You make an excellent point w/r to the external users of WP. Nobody outside of WP ever writes that WP has too many non-notable topics. However, the deletionist issue is something discussed ad naseum (and has been for almost half a decade with little done to counter it).

The most recent case has just come up today is the deletion argument surrounding one of the most notable gaming websites, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_Murray

Reading the AFD discussion (yes, that's right, the 2nd nomination), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Old_Man_Murray_(2nd_nomination)#Old_Man_Murray

The arguments are the same, some deletionist flags it, some overzealous editor approves it, and in the middle, a useless discussion over the semantics of notability generally centered around people who think that for something to be notable it must appear in a highly respected academic journal and be referenced several dozen times.

Respondents usually reply with a laundry list of notable references to the article, none of which, no matter how notable or significant will ever be accepted by the abusive deletionist and admin clique and the article will end up deleted.

This kind of nonsense needs to stop. But alas, it's been going on for 5 or 6 years with absolutely no response from WM.

Here's a typical thread (from the AfD discussion for OMM, but you can find almost this same discussion verbatim in most AfD discussions -- bolded emphasis is mine). IMHO editors like this don't help. By simply ignoring any evidence presented, they establish bizarre and insurmountable standards that no person could ever surmount -- least of all newbies. How many notable references does the page need? One? Six? What exactly does "significant" mean? Who knows? But an admin will be more than happy to berate a newbie and send them links to hundreds of pages of guidelines, rule and policies to keep the newbie busy and out of their hair.

Delete Fails WP:WEB for lack of significant (or pretty much any) coverage in reliable third-party sites. Of the nine references provided in the article, five are to Old Man Murray itself, and the others are to blogs (and even they do not provide "significant" coverage, just mentions). Google News Archive finds a few passing mentions in Wired Magazine, otherwise nothing. --MelanieN (talk) 15:42, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Is typing a word into google archive honestly a standard you want to use for deleting articles? Worm4Real (talk) 22:14, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

• Bottom line, yes. It's the standard we have here, for lack of a better. It doesn't have to be the news archive, it can be Google Books or other search engines. Or it can be reliable sources not found in any of those places, but cited in the article. Currently there aren't any. I did my best to find what Wikipedia requires, which is significant coverage by independent reliable sources, before I !voted "delete". Your numerous comments here have done nothing so far to change my mind; in fact you would change more minds if you would keep your comments less hostile. You obviously feel very strongly about this site, but if you want to keep its page on Wikipedia you simply have to come up with reliable sources to support your insistence that it is notable by Wikipedia's definition. If there are no such sources, then the article can't stay here, no matter how strongly you and your friends feel about it. --MelanieN (talk) 00:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Honestly I don't even feel strongly about the site, it just kind of amazes me to see people do a few no effort web searches and declare that they could find no references to the website, then to see those people ignore references when presented with them. The only complaint presented with anything anyone not from wikipedia has said is that they're not from wikipedia. Worm4Real (talk) 01:43, 27 February 2011 (UTC)