` Since nobody has thought it necessary to post a count before concluding the deletion request, I'll do it.   :Keep: 5 :Merge all: 2 :Merge, but keep some:7 :Delete: 0  This means that the original deletion request was rejected. I want to thank everybody for this unanimous vote, because it attests that my contributions were valid.   Actually this appeared quite clear from the start as even the originator of the request, , has never cast a vote for deletion. His vote is Merge, but keep some.  Thus remains the question why the deletion request was filed at all. I think that  had every right to question the utility of the pages created. He was also right trying to influence the further development of the project. There is an instrument on Wikipedia to do that. It is called Talk page.   However he decided on another instrument without ever contacting me and this gave a number of people, who had never taken any interest in the argument, the power to interfere. What followed has been called a ``mess`` by  and I would rather agree with his definition.   More precisely, I'd tend to call the procedure an abuse, since it has been wielded to install a kind of preventive democratic control over how users have to submit their contributions to Wikipedia, which is certainly not the purpose of a deletion request.   According to the spirit of the compromise reached and to judge from the messages posted on the single talk pages, it is now in the competence of the admins to decide which articles on ancient athletes are permitted, how many and why. Thus everything has been burocraticized and as a consequence the whole area of research has been transformed into a minefield. So who would ever touch it again?  This approach hasn't worked in the past and it never will. Probably these power plays are also among the motives for the loss of so many valid editors whose enthusiasm must have vanished for a reason. As long as these stupid games have the better, I'm afraid the future looks bleak. Wikipedia can only survive as a free encyclopedia and today we have lost some of that freedom.  After many words, here is the body count of today's battle:  This user has stopped contributing to Wikipedia.  What I leave on the field is a rudimentary list of Olympic winners, thirty-five marginal articles with a merge tag and an incomplete calendar which is currently displayed on 776 pages and should have been expanded to 400 more.  Maybe the users wielding paragraphs and guidelines will take care of the completion of these projects, but from what I've seen I'm not very optimistic. Thanks everybody for watching. Good bye.`