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Nowhere in the wikipedia entry does it say that is "criteria" for a data center. In fact, it says things like "they generally include..." or "are usually"
While it doesn't say that those are the "criteria", you even concede that the article says that they "generally include" or "are usually" comprised of the listed criteria, so I don't think I'm that far off the mark in thinking that the items mentioned would be considered "standard".

But that's no reason to go on a rant about what a "data center" vs. a "server room" is.
In fairness, I didn't go on a rant. I made a rather succinct (and ok maybe a little sarcastic) comment about the scope of what is generally considered a datacenter, and subsequently responded to various differing opinions. If I had posted some lengthy diatribe about how "real men work in datacenters of X size" or something to that effect, I'd admit I'd flown off the handle, but I was merely trying to make a point and for some reason it seemed to really piss a few people off.

I have to ask - what is your exact minimum qualifications of square footage, number of racks, kw density, storage density, and kw requirements before you would consider it a "data center"? As I stated in this reply, I don't think there's a minimum of square footage or even necessarily minimum capacity in terms of KW consumption or data throughput. I DO, however, contend that there are certain "benchmark" levels of infrastructure that one must have to call a facility a datacenter (versus a server room, colo room, IT lab, etc etc). Some of those levels are truly redundant utility feeds (from different substations/grids), redundant generators (if you need 1, you have 2, just in case), redundant UPS's (ditto), static switches and associated gear (for moving a "live" critical load), FM-200, real access control (physical security, biometrics, motion detector camera systems, etc).

I guess I'm just surprised that a few people are really bothered by this. I've got guys arguing with me that their buddy's garage with a UPS and an air conditioner is a datacenter for crying out loud!! This isn't about my trying to be egocentric or playing "my datacenter can beat up your datacenter" at all, I'm merely pointing out that it's not really fair to use the same term to refer to places like mentioned in the article and places like these, or this, or this, or this.

You make a good point that it is all relative to a degree, and perhaps people are reacting to what I'm saying because quite frankly, some of them might not have seen a large datacenter before (other than in the movies) and thus are perceiving that I'm trying to dump on where they work/have worked. In truth, I'm just taking issue with everything being lumped together, particularly within the context of a discussion of building one (apparently from start to finish) in 60 days. It's just a ridiculous suggestion. It's no more ridiculous than suggesting that a drive across town in a Yugo is the same thing as a drive across the country in a Ferrari (yes, I even had someone in another thread use the old Slashdot car analogy on me) because they're both taking place in cars. I'm not dumping on the Yugo or claiming the Ferrari's better, I'm just saying it's not really the same thing and one's definitely going to cost more and take longer.

Google Cache. Clearly the ISP acted to prevent "flagrant copyright", for I got this page, or optimistically, excessive bandwidth.

The original link is here, if anyone wishes to try it out.

Yeah, I looked up the terms of service from his service provider and retrieved this snippet:

How much bandwidth/traffic do I get with my Web site?

We allow 15 GB of transfer per month. This is an adequate amount to operate a bandwidth intensive website. If your web pages average 10 KB in size, you would be able to receive 1,500,000 million hits per month.

So it looks like we chewed up his whole month's allocation in a few minutes... wow!