Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

Odin’s Popularity and Use

• Many commenters had never heard of Odin; others into programming languages or game dev knew it well.
• Widely agreed: Odin is niche but real – used commercially (e.g., by a VFX tools company), has an active Discord (~10k), and some streamers use it.
• Debate over how “popular” it is: some call it one of the more notable modern C-like competitors; others say that’s exaggerated compared to languages like Rust, Zig, Go, etc.
• Several note that “I haven’t heard of it” doesn’t prove non-notability, given how fragmented programming niches are.

Wikipedia Notability & Process

• Multiple commenters explain: Wikipedia cares about notability and verifiability, not intrinsic merit or truth.
• Core requirement: significant coverage in independent, reliable secondary sources (journalism, academic work, reputable tech media).
• Company claims (“we use this language”) and project websites are primary sources and don’t establish notability.
• AfD (Articles for Deletion) is consensus-driven discussion, not a vote; older weak articles often survive simply because no one revisits them.

Fairness, Bias, and “Deletionism”

• Some see deletion as arbitrary, biased, or driven by “busybody” editors and a small clique of power users.
• Others defend strict standards as necessary in a low‑trust, spam‑heavy, AI‑generated environment.
• Frustration is common among people whose carefully written articles were deleted; they point to the asymmetry of effort between creation and deletion.
• Counterpoint: keeping non-notable, poorly sourced tool/language pages mainly benefits self-promotion and imposes maintenance burden.

Alternatives and the Future of Knowledge Sites

• Some suggest or link alternatives (AI-based encyclopedias, more-permissive wikis) and argue “low-quality but existent” beats deletion.
• Others respond that an encyclopedia with low-quality, unsourced material is of limited value; Wikipedia’s strictness is exactly what makes it trusted.
• A few speculate that LLMs and specialized community resources may increasingly serve niches like programming languages better than Wikipedia.

Politics, Personality, and Tone

• The blog’s focus on the language author’s online behavior and follows, and its political framing, is divisive.
• Some appreciate the analysis of “engagement farming” and inconsistent rhetoric; others see it as ad hominem, tribal, or irrelevant to whether Odin merits an article.
• Broader concern: critics often attack Wikipedia from outside without engaging in its community or rules, then attribute outcomes to ideological capture.