You know how sometimes news people will put a question mark at the end of their headlines or, even more commonly, the TV news anchors will do the higher voice thing at the end of stuff before going to the break: “Are there too many fat people in St. Louis?!”, “People find Randy Naughton informative?!”

This headline is just like those. The answer to the “question” we posed to ourselves is: Yes. Kurt Greenbaum is moving on from his post at STLToday.com

Greenbaum, you may remember, was the guy that looked up a commenter’s IP address, used that personal information to track down and call his employer, thus getting the guy fired and then promptly bragging about it on his blog. Totally made his feel awesome, right up until the time the internet reached down its collective hand, grabbed Greenbaum, chewed him up, spit him out and then took a fat dump on him.

You forgot?! Read!

The Post Dispatch’s “Social Media Guy” Tattles on Naughty Commenter, Craps on Privacy Policy

The Internet Hate Machine Turns On Kurt Greenbaum

We Talk With the Man Behind KurtGreenbaumIsAPussy.com

Kurt Greenbaum 29th Most Search Google Term

Checking in on the Kurt Greenbaum Saga

Greenbaum Returns! STLToday’s Comments Under Hilarious Attack

Greenbaum to Giving Tips About How to Handle New Media?!

Kurt Greenbaum Thinks He Did Nothing Wrong (with video)

…we liked that subject.

After going in to hiding for a while and returning, although quietly, at the start of this year, Greenbaum is leaving the STLToday.com site he “ran” and the parent newspaper St. Louis Post Dispatch to be an editor on Patch.com (which one could also infer that Patch is coming to St. Louis).

The obvious joke here is to never comment anything even remotely edgy on Patch.com now that Greenbaum rolling in, but come on, we’re a little more original than that here.

…

Actually, in all seriousness, we would avoid commenting on Patch.com just to be safe.Image from KurtGreenbaumIsAPussy.com

precedent

noun |ˈpresid(ə)nt|

an earlier event or action that is regarded as an example or guide to be considered in subsequent similar circumstances

Just a little note for our friend Kurt Greenbaum.  After watching a video we received tonight from the guys over at STLtomorrow of Greenbaum shakily talking about the infamous incident at his recent public appearance, its clear he has no idea what the word means.

From the video (embedded below):

Random Guy: “Doesn’t this set a precedent for when you see other objectionable comments to contact other employers as well? Should people be afraid to com…”

Greenbaum: “No, I don’t think it sets a precedent.”

Random Guy: “Well it happened.”

Greenbaum: “Ok. I don’t think it set a precedent.”

Random Guy: “Would you consider doing that again?”

Greenbaum: “I don’t know.”

I don’t know?! I honestly don’t know if Greenbaum really thinks he did nothing wrong, or if he is just sticking to his retarded guns here.

There was a time where we even felt a little sorry for Greenbaum’s misguided ass, but he comes off like a self-righteous dick in this video even more than he did in the blog post basically bragging about getting a man fired!

There’s no point to continue disecting Greenbaum’s actions.  It was wrong.  Everyone knows it.  Well not everyone.  Just the one guy. It’s really frustrating when everyone in the world knows something and one poor bastard just can’t see the truth.

This must be what it’s like to be around Tom Cruise or Lois Lane.

Video courtesy of STLTomorrow.org

You really can’t make this stuff up.  I tried to make up something as crazy as this once but it ended up no one thought it was all that funny, we had to land the plane in Colorado, and I’m pretty sure I’m on the no-fly list now.

If there ever were doubts about whether the public has opinions about the news, the arrival of online reader comments has dispelled them. They do, and they aren’t afraid to post them online, usually anonymously. Sometimes those views are insightful, but sometimes they’re insensitive and occasionally they’re downright offensive.

How should media outlets manage this new forum and where should they draw the line on what’s allowed?

A group of experts will discuss the brave new world that is “story comments”

…and the first panelist is…

Kurt Greenbaum, assistant city editor and online editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since 2002. Kurt’s been involved in online journalism since 1996 and has been a reporter and editor at the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale and dbusiness.com, an online business news start-up.

Greenbaum also recently tripped, face first, in to a giant pile of internet shit when he got a man let go from his job after violating his own site’s privacy policy to track down a commenter that said a naughty word in the comments of a childish post.

And then this happened.  And this.  This too. Oh and don’t forget this.

Frankly if the panel invited because of his recent issues as a “what not to ever do” this would be fantastic, but it appears that’s not that case which means we could have even more people pulling Greenbaums in the future.

Maybe you should stick to just commenting on here.  I promise I won’t get you in to trouble at work.  Trust me, I’ve been there.

New year and all is forgiven?

After laying low for all of December, the now infamous Kurt Greenbaum has returned to his blogging duties on STLToday.com…in a post about responsibility.

I-R-O-N-Y!

The comments on the post were shockingly on topic, but all I could see what the first page of them.  Clicking the “Next” link broke STLToday.com for me.  I know, totally shocking huh?

Also not shocking is the fact that social news site Reddit has already picked up on his return and the link has reached the front page with, at the time of this writing, 785 votes and nearly 300 comments.

It gets way better though.

The readers of Reddit have found a new game: Sneaking the word “pussy” (the very same word that a commenter tried to post and Greenbaum tracked down, causing the initial firestorm) in to the comments of his blog post.  Examples?  Sure!

Of course others are more direct:

Consider this your Groundhog Day Kurt.  Go back in your hole for a few more weeks.  It’s still not safe.

No, nothing new (that we know of) has happened in Greenbaum-Gate, but word is still spreading out from just our little world of baseball and new highways:

The Globe and Mail has an op/ed piece on Greenbaum: “When Comment Moderation Goes Too Far“

The Huffington Post’s article on it is still getting comments.

Greenbaum’s Twitter profile is still blocked.

…and the 8th result on Google for “Kurt Greenbaum” is our friend at KurtGreenbaumIsAPussy.com

In some ways it appears the sprinting monster that is the internet and found something else shiny and turned its attention to that, but I wouldn’t say all is clear yet.

Maybe Kurt will poke his head out in the new year and see if its still stormy out.

I really want to stop posting about this Kurt Greenbaum thing, but interesting things keep popping up.  Like this:  At one point in this whole mess, the term “Kurt Greenbaum” was the 29th most searched term on Google!

Think about that for a second.  That’s amazing!

Also, this is amazing…