Wikipedia wars erupt (latimes.com)

I would like to see someone create a new Wikipedia entry about Mzoli's that says "Mzoli's is a small restaurant in South Africa that sparked a fierce controversy among Wikipedia contributors..." Ironically, if deletionists were right before, they are certainly wrong now. Mzoli's does now have significance :-)

Take a look at the Mzoli's article now:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mzoli%27s

This is really why Wikipedia rocks: the more people complain about it, the better it gets.

Wikipedia uses the wrong criterion. Instead of asking of an article, "Is this notable?" they should ask "Is this useful?" If so, let it remain. This is much more elegant than their already large body of law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_notability_g...) and precedent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/delete). It works for edits too; you just ask, "Does this edit add or subtract utility?"

The usefulness criterion would allow promotional articles and edits. Automated spam should still be deleted, but promotional handwritten stuff that contains some facts is better than nothing. Subsequent edits can remove the spamminess.

Of course, this means an article on any topic is OK. In a web encyclopedia, that's the right thing.

Everytime I visit Wikipedia I contemplate writing a Greasemonkey script that would get rid of the "this article lacks citations" warning. I think they are definitely on the wrong track, hopefully they'll be able to change the direction again soon.