"I want my decaf latte now - ....or do you want me to Seigenthal you?!?!"

This morning, Bruce sent me a link to the USA Today article about John Seigenthaler, Sr. and his righteous indignation at discovering a fictional, and, let's face it, funny, entry about himself in Wikipedia.

I read it with interest, since my work-life is pretty much web 2.0 these days, and it looked as if leveling some very serious charges against Wikipedia, collective intelligence, anonymity, freedom, anarchy, and, as he so beautifully puts it, "volunteer vandals with poison-pen intellects."

In general I was sympathetic to Mr. Seigenthaler's plight - what a drag to have Answers.com and others pick up and disseminate the content. Imagine, someone thinking for 30 minutes, if they cared, that you were living in Russia, for GOD's sake...

Mr. Seigenthaler's editorial reads like a course in propaganda, manufacturing demons and separating them from citizens, and exaggerating the vandalism problem in Wikipedia. Which brings me to my point. The half-life of Wikipedia vandalism is short - in fact, in inverse proportion to the memetic relevance, perhaps, of the topic (this is a guess, but then, this is a blog) and the overall accuracy of Wikipedia articles is quite good.

It just seems wrong that Mr. Seigenthaler's influence should justify punishing Brian Chase. In fact, I think it's pretty outrageous, and Mr. Seigenthaler's response is disproportionate to the offence.

Could it be that this particular article in Wikipedia lay vandalised for a disproportionate amount of time? That Mr. Seigenthaler's carrer is not currently of any real interest to anyone but Mr. Seigenthaler, and that he waxes a little bitter about the outcome of his chosen path? Just the same, not a great reson to crush an average Joe...

So the only reasonable reaction is to offer this neologism, in honor of Senator Dick Santorum:

to seigenthal - to overreact, attacking pranksters or people with less clout using propagandist appeals and asymmetrical good-ole-boy influence, such as direct access to the founder of Wikipedia...

p.s. - will I get in trouble if I enter it onto Wiktionary - to seigenthal, v.t. ?