Have we covered Kurt Greenbaum of the STL P-D here yet?

[Det. Jimmy McNulty]

This all went down in November, but it was mentioned in an article in today's Chicago Tribune. I did a search for guy's name, it's Kurt Greenbaum, and nothing came up.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-met-anonymous-internet-posters-20100212,0,7539146.story

Anonymity is no guarantee in online postings

News organizations, courts finding ways to subpoena people who post defamatory comments in online forums

Then you read the second half of the article:

Those judged guilty of violating a poster's privacy can be sentenced to serious digital scorn. A good example is Kurt Greenbaum, an editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who tipped off the employer of an anonymous commenter who posted an offensive statement on the paper's Web site.

Greenbaum posted a question last November on a blog on the Post-Dispatch site asking, "What's the craziest thing you've ever eaten?" One commenter, according to a post Greenbaum later wrote, replied with a vulgarity. Greenbaum reported he deleted the post, but it popped up again from the same user.

This time he used the Internet protocol address to contact the place where the comment originated, a school. Officials tracked down the poster, an employee, and confronted him. The man resigned, Greenbaum reported in a blog post titled: "Post a vulgar comment while you're at work, lose your job."

He got this guy fired! All for making a "vulgar comment." Here's his blog:

http://interact.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-editors-desk/the-editors-desk/2009/11/post-a-vulgar-comment-while-youre-at-work-lose-your-job/comment-page-3/#comments

I'm enraged this guy is even employed. Greenbaum, his boss, and his/her boss' boss should be fired immediately. If anyone signed off on this, they should be fired. I would sue Greenbaum and his employer so fast their heads would spin and Greenbaum's lucky if nothing physically happens to him. You just don't **** up another guy's living just because he made some comment online you didn't like.

Incredible. I am glad I am not Kurt Greenbaum. It is definitely going to suck to be him for a long, long time.

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

He used to work at my paper.

Didn't know him very well.

I do know this... if I went to those lengths to get someone fired, I would be worried for my kids or my wife or myself.

Just don't **** around like that. And, if you do, don't publicize it.

Putz.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

http://www.kurtgreenbaumisapussy.com/

(It's frightening what google search can bring up these days)

 

[Point of Order]

Dude, don't post that comment from the school computer.

 

[fishhack2009]

What a douchebag.

Wonder if he thinks his actions were worth the ****storm he's apparently caused.

 

[D-3 Fan]

1. Don't post that comment on a school or work computer

2. I don't care how much you want to find out who wrote it, if you can't delete it or block someone from posting it, you're a bigger wuss.

That is frightening to read that.

 

[Starman]

Anonymous posts on any message board or blog can be deleted with impunity.

Who's gonna protest, "BadassBasementBoy" ??

If you're a moderator and a post upsets you, go ahead and do that.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Classic plains-state busybody.

Obviously votes the straight GOP ticket.

Not enough bad things can happen to this joker.

 

[slappy4428]

http://www.kurtgreenbaumisapussy.com/

(It's frightening what google search can bring up these days)

Wonderfully snarky stuff here.... would the owner like to write the poll story next year?

 

[D-3 Fan]

Classic plains-state arrgoant busybody who could have worked for any daily in America.

Obviously votes the straight GOP ticket Green Party ticket.

Not enough bad things can happen to this joker.

Thanks for calling us plain-staters a bunch of ****ing morons, jerk. Have a great day!

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Classic plains-state arrgoant busybody who could have worked for any daily in America.

Obviously votes the straight GOP ticket Green Party ticket.

Not enough bad things can happen to this joker.

Thanks for calling us plain-staters a bunch of ****ing morons, jerk. Have a great day!

I'd assume the blue/sarcasm font holds, but in case not:

I didn't.

I was specifying this individual clown.

Anybody who comes up with any contrary evidence regarding this jerk, I'll
stand corrected -- but not
holding my breath.

No offense meant to you.
Don't jump to hasty conclusions.

 

[Bristol Whipped]

I don't have a big problem with what Greenbaum did. Every day each of us writes something for the paper, we're held accountable for what we write. It sounds like some school staffer somewhere wrote something vulgar and was held accountable. I wouldn't have gone to the trouble to rat him out, but if, heaven forbid, someone was actually held accountable for what they said, I can't say I have any inclination to rush to his defense.

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

If I read that correctly, it sounded like Greenbaum simply had the place where the poster was posting from alerted of the vulgarity he was posting. At that point, that place's IT department went into overdrive to find the poster and when confronted, the poster resigned. What the IT department did in searching for the poster was out of Greenbaum's control, and unless I'm missing something, it was the poster's choice to resign.

I'm all for internet vigilante justice. I think the woman behind the Myspace suicide deserves every nasty thing written about her online and then some. But this just doesn't do it for me. Seems like Greenbaum's getting ripped disproportionate to his role in this. Yes, the appropriate action was to delete the offending posts, and if the posts bothered him that much, have the poster's IP address blocked from the site or at least from posting comments. The general reaction to this just seems over the top though.

 

[albert77]

Classic plains-state arrgoant busybody who could have worked for any daily in America.

Obviously votes the straight GOP ticket Green Party ticket.

Not enough bad things can happen to this joker.

Thanks for calling us plain-staters a bunch of ****ing morons, jerk. Have a great day!

I'd assume the blue/sarcasm font holds, but in case not:

I didn't.

I was specifying this individual clown.

Anybody who comes up with any contrary evidence regarding this jerk, I'll
stand corrected -- but not
holding my breath.

No offense meant to you.
Don't jump to hasty conclusions.

Sorry, Ben, but you made a blanket indictment of all plains-staters and/or those who vote a straight Republican ticket as prissy busybodies worthy of universal scorn. That may not have been your intention, but that's the way it read.

 

[Big Buckin' agate_monkey]

That's what I read.

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

I don't have a big problem with what Greenbaum did. Every day each of us writes something for the paper, we're held accountable for what we write. It sounds like some school staffer somewhere wrote something vulgar and was held accountable. I wouldn't have gone to the trouble to rat him out, but if, heaven forbid, someone was actually held accountable for what they said, I can't say I have any inclination to rush to his defense.

It's not about defending the school employee.

It's about ripping someone who decided to try getting someone fired.

Inexcusable.

 

[Point of Order]

It's merely an opinion that he tried to get the guy fired -- not a fact. The only fact is that he called the school.

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

It's merely an opinion that he tried to get the guy fired -- not a fact. The only fact is that he called the school.

What the **** do you think the guy was trying to accomplish by calling the school?

Holy ****ing Christ.

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

Greenbaum could have been simply trying to get the guy to quit posting '*****' on the comments section, not necessarily get him fired. And picking nits, the guy wasn't fired, he resigned -- granted, I don't know if it was under pressure, or if he was confronted about it and in his embarrassment, quit, maybe even against the school's wishes for all I know. But for all Greenbaum knew, the poster's boss could have confronted the poster and said, "Hey, we got a call from the Post-Dispatch about the comments you're posting. Stop it. Now."

That does violate the P-D policy of not revealing the names of posters. And it's a dumb way to handle the situation anyway given that the IP address could have just been blocked, solving the problem. But I just can't muster the indignation for this that I can for, say, the Myspace suicide woman, who deserves every nasty thing to happen to her for the rest of her life, or the videos that pop up occasionally of cops blatantly harassing people. The Myspace woman is a 10 on my indignation meter, the cops anywhere from 6-9, this... a 2 or 3, tops.

 

[Point of Order]

It's merely an opinion that he tried to get the guy fired -- not a fact. The only fact is that he called the school.

What the **** do you think the guy was trying to accomplish by calling the school?

Holy ****ing Christ.

You seem a little too emotionally involved in this one.