I've been advised to have brought this matter to a "noticeboard", so I figure this one is as good as any. I hope that any uninvolved Wikipedia editors in good standing might help weigh in on this debate.

We have one party (me) wishing to help expand Wikipedia's usefulness by including one external link to a sourced, academically-cited blog post. The author's credentials include career work in the area of churn rate research, currently for a Fortune 100 firm where churn is an essential matter.

We have another party saying it is not sourced, that the scholarly reference to it is merely a ".edu web page", and that the author is not a recognized expert.

Who do you think has the more solid footing in this debate?

Debating in Wikipedia is like holding a tug of war over a watery hole whilst standing on thin ice.

I read the blog post to which you link. It is very informative and thorough and unbiased - exactly the sort of site that I, as a reader of Wikipedia, expect that some kind soul will direct me to learn. Requirements for quality of sourcing must be tempered by common sense and availability. If the best available source on a subject is a blog post, you link to the blog post, provided that the author is competent to be relied upon (which appears to hold true here).

You may copy my opinion to the Wikipedia talk page if you wish.

Er. Shall [[WP:WR]] be added to the templates?

I'm not sure either site would appreciate this.

Wikipedia:WikiReader already has dibs on that one, I think WP:DRAMA-FORK will be free for a couple more weeks.

It's an interesting problem, but there are no BLP concerns, it's a good blog entry, other sources are mostly deficient, and it's a real term used for a real phenomenon. If Wikipedia can't allow for this sort of subject matter and relevant source material, blog entry or otherwise, then someone probably should start some sort of "Online Business-Terminology Wiki," with the appropriate sourcing guidelines.

OTOH, I realize that there's a consistency issue, and that if Wikipedia articles were to contain "External Blog Links" sections, everybody and his Mom would be adding their opinion blogs to articles all over the site, claiming "the header makes it all right." (This is what makes it an interesting problem, you see!)

As far as the actual article goes, the only thing I would object to is the fact that the generic term, Attrition Rate (T-H-L-K-D), redirects to it. The Churn Rate article should refer to "Attrition Rate" as the general term, and "Churn Rate" as a form of Attrition Rate, not an equivalent synonym. Other than that, I'd have to say it's a good article, and the blog link should probably be allowed, at least until a more "reliable source" comes along... Of course, that source will probably use Greg's data without attribution, but this is the internet, after all. (Personally, I don't know why people even bother half the time.)

When I worked at a federally-funded R&D company, they used the arresting term "staff burn rate" perhaps in recognition of the fact that they were using up staff who would eventually become burned out after laboring unproductively for months and years.

And sure enough...

Then again, that article has a "hat note" for other usages, so maybe that's another solution for "Churn rate." Anyway, it's a minor quibble - I probably shouldn't have even brought it up!

For those of you old enough to recall the Smith Barney ads with John Houseman, the joking remark was, "We waste money the old-fashioned way. We burn it."

To revert to topic, all you need is a reliable source that the author of the blog is a reliable source. Simple.