Cherryflava

Mzoli’s wikipedia page sparks international debate which results in online war

Posted on 01. Oct, 2007 by Jonathan Cherry in Streetflava

Firstly – we’d like to put it out there that we feel partly responsible for this.

A while back the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, was in Cape Town and did the right thing by heading to Mzoli’s Meats in Gugs for an afternoon of superbly marinaded meat and beer.
While sitting in braaied meat bliss, Jimmy Googled Mzoli’s and stumbled upon our original post on the place here.

Mr Wales was so taken by our command of the written word and the power of shabeen purchased Heineken, that right there and then he created a Wikipedia entry for Mzoli’s.

Twenty-two minutes later, the article was deleted from the site.
Nineteen-year-old administrator Chad Horohoe, who uses the moniker
"^demon," removed the entry, citing Wikipedia guideline CSD A7
(Criteria for Speedy Deletion: Articles: No. 7), which says that an
article can be summarily deleted — with no discussion or notice to the
author — if it contains "no assertion of importance/significance."

According to the LA Times –

Horohoe’s unilateral decision to kill the "Mzoli’s" article spawned a vehement weeklong debate
in which dozens of users and administrators battled over the
importance/significance of a barbecue place none of them had heard of.

Much like the genius stunt of employing a beauty-queen to ‘product place’ South Africa all over American pop culture – the tourism authorities have done it again.
This time…an influx of American grad students and defenders of creative commons are on their way to Gugulethu, Cape Town, South Africa to discover for themselves if indeed there is a place as legendary as Jimmy Wales proclaims.

Pfffft – never heard of Mzoli’s….

More:
Mzoli’s meat – Wikipedia
Wikipedia wars erupt – LA Times

Previously:
Mzoli’s – the ultimate user-generated restaurant – Cherryflava