Yes, but would they?

</cynicism>

Indeed, this is a policy I think a lot of people disagree with. Still, it prevents Wikipedia from having an article on every Pokemon.

So what's a better criterion? An arbitrary "I've heard of it before" vote? Ghits?

Read WP:N again, carefully. At least some references must specifically refer to the subject as an independent topic, not just mention it as a subtopic of something else. (The Time Magazine article comes close, but it doesn't really go into any detail, as the first commenter on the AfD mentioned.) That's why the article was merged. Why none of the content of said article appears in the lolcats article is another matter entirely.

If there are so many references, why don't you add some of them to the article? You see, that's the beauty of Wikipedia: if something is wrong, you can fix it yourself. And it's almost impossible for an article with reliable, properly cited references to get deleted for good.

So... um... when did this happen? You don't give a specific example, and I'm pretty sure the Pokemon thing was settled a loooong time ago. And, again, remember that deletion review can undelete stuff if more references can be supplied, and that an article can be recreated after a poor version is deleted. (Although recreating a poor article with another poor version a couple times is a sure way to get a ban.)

Sigh... every time any article on Slashdot mentions Wikipedia, there's always a flood of people saying "oh, no, I don't dare write anything lest my poor little article get deleted". Yes, there are cases of admins abusing power and deleting articles that never should be deleted. However, these cases are few and far between compared to the number of articles that are deleted for the legitimate reason that no one except the author would ever want to read about the topic.

Have you actually even read WP:N? The third sentence of the page begins "Notability is distinct from 'fame,' 'importance,' or 'popularity'...". For the most part, there is a very simple rule for deciding what is notable: if someone independent of the specific community of people related to the topic has written about the topic, it is notable; otherwise, it is not notable. Many stubs can automatically be saved from deletion by spending five minutes Googling for references.

In short: the few unusual cases of articles being deleted improperly has caused everyone to believe that there are no solid criteria for deletion. There are. Read them. And, of course, there's always Deletion Review.

Finally, I refer you to one of my previous comments.

Here you go: OpenOffice.org has every feature that any practical user would ever want or need. Microsoft Office has these, too, but it also has the ability to generate charts in seventeen dimensions, which for some reason is the one feature absolutely essential to whoever you happen to be trading documents with.

That's not the point. The point is that there is most definitely still work to be done to make OpenOffice usable in a major business environment. And by "usable", I mean "PHBs will be willing to use it instead of MS Office".

How about fixing some of the 12058 open bugs?

Most people on Slashdot believe that an alarmingly large percentage of patent applications are granted. The number of outright stupid patents that are granted is often exaggerated into the "application == patent" phenomenon you mention. Sadly, some of the time, they're right.

Alright, then. How about you suggest an experiment that would isolate the correct variable.

Stop coming up with excuses. If you can't suggest a better experiment, don't complain.

I'm not really sure that octopuses need a water dish. They kind of live in it and stuff.

Wow! 360 sales! That's particularly amazing, since there's only a world market for five computers.