The FAQs:
Are games ever deleted from the site?
Yes. Games may be removed from the site under the following circumstances:
- The Game Owner has violated site rules in order to create the game.
- The game's content violates RPoL's site rules, and the GM has been unresponsive to site moderator warnings, or has previously been required to modify a game for the same problem.
- The Game Owner has deleted the game, and the game has not been resurrected for at least two months. (The actual time is generally longer than this, and usually depends upon how many posts the game has.)
- The game has lapsed into inactivity, and has been inactive for a number of months equal to: 2 months × (1 + (#_of_posts / 100)) (but no greater than 1 year). At this time, it is usually moved to the "Deleted" area, where it may still be resurrected by the Game Owner. If it's there for at least one month (but usually considerably longer) and is not resurrected, it may be deleted from the site.
As should be apparent from the above, deleting a game simply flags it for deletion, and it will be removed later by a script run by a Moderator.
It's deliberately done this way because it means there are a lot less rMails asking us, "Hey! Can you find this game that I deleted by accident?"
Note, also, that having games from last year still showing up in
Wanted - Players info is actually a feature that was requested by site users who wanted to be able to check up on GMs before joining their games (so giving GMs a way to "wipe the slate clean" would be working against that).