[Milawe]

I agree with you partially on this. I think it's hard to make a firm and true ruling on this simply because then do all MMOs fall under just a general MMO entry and shouldn't have their own entries. If they should be able to keep it, do they get to keep it on the virtue of just being bigger even the ones that have gone out of business? It's very obvious that many, many hours have been put into EQ, WoW, WAR and even some of the defunct games. Darkness Falls even has a Wikipedia entry, and it was shut down by Mythic two years ago. I, however, would really like to be able to read more about it since it's pretty vital to Dark Age of Camelot, one of the more successful MMOs.

I guess I've never really thought of it as an advertisement for a game. It's doubtful that someone will find us on Wikipedia and then decide to play. It's much more likely that someone hears about us and tries to look us up on Wikipedia for more information. That's how Wikipedia used to work for me. I'd want to know about something I hear on TV or on the radio, and I'd type it in to see what I could find out about it. Sometimes I don't do anything with that information except to say, "Wow, cool." Other times, it leads me down to coding a new area or a new system.

We keep track of how people get to Threshold, and no one has ever entered Wikipedia as where they heard about it. There is so much on Wikipedia that I'm unsure how one would use it to advertise. (I'm sure there are ways. I just haven't come up with one yet.)

Anyway, it could very well be that I'm mistaken in what Wikipedia's all about. Maybe people use it very differently than I do. I had always been under the assumption that the more you can find out on Wikipedia, the more likely that it will keep growing. If, however, things that have faded out of the mainstream need to go, then so be it. It's less like an encyclopedia and more like something to keep track of modern and popular trends. (Though, I have to say that the guidelines and policies strongly suggest against this phenomenon.)

In the end, it's true that the people who work the hardest on Wikipedia get to shape what it is, so maybe it's just time to revise the guidelines and policies to reflect the current expectations and culture of Wikipedia.