Grey wrote:Well, simple fact is Wikipedia isn't meant to be a repository for all knowledge...
As a wiki researcher, I'm afraid this is grossly incorrect. Wikipedia
is intended to factually document all verifiable knowledge, a lofty goal it once accomplished pretty well. That's what an encyclopedia is, after all. Courtesy
Princeton's Wordnet: "encyclopedia (n): a reference work containing articles on various topics dealing with
the entire range of human knowledge."
But don't take it from me. After all, I'm merely a researcher. Straight from
the horse's mouth: "We want Wikipedia to be around at least a hundred years from now, if it does not turn into something even more significant. Everything about Wikipedia is engineered towards that end.. We want you to imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge."
Grey wrote:... and they want to keep the site relatively clean of nonsense crap...
Again, this is factually incorrect. Wikipedia is opinion-agnostic; ideally, subjective opinions of what constitutes "nonsense crap" have no bearing. No one editor (or cabal of editors) gets to decide what constitutes "nonsense crap," which is
good. Neither of us have probably heard of
Qubit Field Theory, but that makes it no less factually verifiable. Hence,
obscurity is not grounds for deletion. (See also the well-written essays
Overzealous deletion and
Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions.)
So. What
does have bearing?
Notability, one of the four pillars of Wikipedia policy. So. What's notability? Topics that have "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Clearly, ToME4 more than meets such simplistic criteria.
Grey wrote:... which means coming down hard on some things that a few minor people consider very important.
Again, this is factually incorrect. I demonstrate why by way of a counter-example:
asteroids.
Asteroids are awesome, right? Yes, but consider this: for every asteroid discovered in our Solar System, Wikipedia contains a corresponding article. That's over 18,000 articles, most of which don't have proper article titles. Why? Because most asteroids are so insignificant that we haven't even assigned them names – just
unique alphanumeric identifiers.
Does
anyone believe asteroid
(9920) 1981 EZ10 to be "very important" or even "slightly kind-of maybe sort-of important"? No, probably not. That's why we haven't assigned it a name. But that doesn't matter. The asteroid's existence is factually verifiable via unbiased external sources and hence an appropriate topic for a Wikipedia article.
Grey wrote:ToME would never get an entry in the Encyclopedia Brittanica.
Yes. Because Encyclopedia Britannica was
demonstrably terrible. Deficiencies in one encyclopedia in no way justify similar deficiencies in other encyclopedias.
Grey wrote:There are many many better known games that don't have a Wikipedia entry.
Such as? Any verifiable knowledge Wikipedia currently lacks is a
bug, not a
feature, and should be fixed. Which is exactly what lukep, et al. are graciously doing. Praise be to them, for they venerate wisdom!