Respectfully, you don't know what you're talking about. Nothing crazy has happened here. The whole point of Wikipedia is that anyone can do stuff like "propose that WP delete a page". Note that the page hasn't been deleted yet.

When Randal Schwartz is actually deleted from Wikipedia, then you have an argument.

You do realize that leading off with "Respectfully, you don't know what you are talking about" isn't reducing the image of insularity Wikipedia has acquired? It says "If you don't get up to speed on the obscure processes, such as that anyone can nominate an article for deletion, you can't participate in the dialogue." For some reason, unexplained to outsiders, this is a feature, not a bug. At least recognize that Wikipedia is the odd subculture, not the people critiquing Wikipedia.

I felt bad for telling him he didn't know what he's talking about. But the fact is, he doesn't. And however "insular" you think that makes Wikipedia, note than I am not a WP'er. I find WP insular and obnoxious for reasons entirely unrelated to its (I think reasonable) notability guideline.

I get the point, but it starts to become annoying when people repeatedly propose deletion of pages nobody with an IQ above room temperature would consider deleting.

Like I said downthread: this article actually was crappy. The AfD is going to improve it.

The danger of using an AfD as a tool for improving an article is that it forces people to improve it or remove what already exists, which discourages people from adding articles if they can't add an extensive article (or even if they can).

An AfD should not get filed unless the article itself has negative value to Wikipedia, and Wikipedia would be better off with the article gone. There do exist such articles, but that should be a pretty high bar.

The problem is not that this particular article has a chance for deletion (and it does, if people don't stay on top of it). The problem is that these processes force repeated active defense and maintenance by people who don't want to see useful content deleted, whereas a momentary lapse in vigilance produces a "default" answer of "a few of people think it ought to be deleted and nobody has chimed in in defense with citations for chapter and verse of Wikipedia policies, so let's delete it".

If you'll forgive a political analogy (which seems appropriate given Wikipedia involves politics): What do Wikipedia, governments, and very young children have in common? You have to watch all of them carefully so they don't do something painfully wrong and injure themselves or others, they have a lot more energy than you do, they don't have or use much common sense, and they keep persisting because they can get away with things if you get tired and look away briefly.

And yes, I do know what I'm talking about; I've participated in Wikipedia for years, dealt with several of its policies, and watched its internal workings extensively with both fascination and disgust.

  Every time I think Wikipedia couldn't slide any further
  into craziness, I see something like this.

Oh boy you haven't seen the German WP yet. At least half of what's in the English WP would be deleted due to irrelevancy in the German one, to name just one thing that's wrong with it.

I do agree that there is a line to be drawn, but I am an advocate of erring on the side of vanity. I'd rather have some vanity pages - that cause next to no traffic and don't really take up much storage - than deleting knowledge, however insignificant it might be.