St. Louis News Blog

It's easy to accuse the editors of the Post-Dispatch's website of being a bit prudish, especially after last month's episode when stltoday.com editor Kurt Greenbaum cost a reader his job for posting the word "pussy" to the paper's website.

But to think of the stltoday's editors as overtly puritan would be a mistake. After all, they're the ones who agreed to publish a decidedly lad-mag feature called "Swimsuit Gallery of the Day."

For the past few days the post -- which features a new scantily clad model each day -- has been one of the most-viewed pages on the website.

stltoday.com

A screen capture from yesterday -- Monday, Dec. 7

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So how does the Swimsuit Gallery (shown below) jibe with the Post-Dispatch's editorial policy?

Anonymous

​Last week Daily RFT contacted the man (or woman?) behind Kurt Greenbaum is a Pussy, a vigilante website about a certain Post-Dispatch editor who may (or may not) share similar qualities with "a vulgar expression for a part of a woman's anatomy."

The creator of kurtgreenbaumisapussy.com declined our request for a telephone interview and wouldn't provide his or her name. (Yes, who is calling whom a pussy?)

However, he/she did agree to answer some questions via email about the purpose of the site and the reaction it's received so far. 

So, without further ado...

Daily RFT: We noticed that your website is registered anonymously to the hosting service Domain by Proxy. Why hide your identity?

Anonymous: Because privacy on the Internet is important. The story's not about me, it's about Kurt Greenbaum's behavior. Some people would want to parlay a site like this into fifteen minutes of fame. No, thanks. I understand that my posting anonymously may affect how some people judge the content on the site, and that's a price I pay for being anonymous. It's my ideas that have value here, not my identity. Oh, and there's a long, proud tradition of anonymity in controversial public speech, starting with Thomas Paine.

What do you hope the site accomplishes?

I hope this whole event encourages public discussion about some interesting topics:

Who wants to bet how long it'll be before Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report come to town for this one? 

Will the trolls have the last laugh?

​Somehow we knew it would come to this.

An anonymous website called "Kurt Greenbaum is a Pussy" (www.kurtgreenbaumisapussy.com) popped up yesterday with a mission -- it seems -- to destroy the career of Post-Dispatch editor Kurt Greenbaum.   

Greenbaum is the man who infuriated an army of Internet trolls this week when he wrote how he outed a commenter on the newspaper's website. The commenter allegedly wrote the word "pussy" in response to an article on stltoday.com that asked readers to "name the strangest food" they'd ever eaten.

Greenbaum saw that the response came from an IP address belonging to a local school and called the school's headmaster. The commenter was later confronted by the principal and resigned immediately from his job.

The site kurtgreenbaumisapussy.com is registered to Domains By Proxy, an Internet hosting site that allows web creators to hide their identity. Daily RFT has emailed KGP, asking for an interview. We'll let you know what -- if anything -- we hear.

Meanwhile, the website contains Greenbaum's home address and phone number as well as the addresses and phone number of his bosses at the paper and encourages readers to let them know how they feel.

Update 3:22 p.m.: The site no longer lists Greenbaum's home address. Also the site's creator returned my query and said he/she would answer some questions via email. He/she wouldn't talk on the phone and wanted to remain anonymous. Pussy!

I'm awaiting his/her response.

Like so many of our fellow layabouts who have nothing better to do, Unreal has looked on slack-jawed and mesmerized over the past week as Stltoday.com social media editor Kurt Greenbaum underwent a slow-motion self-immolation, beginning last Friday when he outed a poor schmoe at a local educational institution who had the gall to answer an innocent question -- "What's the craziest thing you've ever eaten? And did you like it?" -- with a one-word rejoinder: "Pussy".

twitter.com/kgreenbaum

Kurt Greenbaum

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twitter.com/kgreenbaum

Kurt Greenbaum

​Stltoday.com editor Kurt Greenbaum yesterday posted a lengthy reflection on why he outed a commenter on the Post-Dispatch website that cost the commenter his job.

The person had twice published the word "pussy" in the comment thread for a story that asked stltoday.com readers to name the strangest thing they'd ever eaten.

After the second posting, Greenbaum saw that the IP address of the commenter was registered to a computer at a local school. Greenbaum then called the school, and the headmaster confronted the guilty employee. The man then resigned on the spot.

In his explanation yesterday, a somewhat contrite Greenbaum admitted that he may have overreacted but did not rule out that he would do the same thing again.

"Have I set some sort of precedent for STLtoday?" writes Greenbaum. "We don't routinely, and would not routinely take the steps I took in this case. For particularly bad cases of abusing our guidelines with vulgarity and obscenity, we would not rule it out."

​Any of you catch the bizarre story yesterday at stltoday.com where online editor Kurt Greenbaum (whose job it is to monitor online comments to the website) wrote how he outed a commenter?

The incident went down like this: Last Friday Stltoday.com asked readers to tell them about the strangest food they've ever eaten. Within a few minutes a commenter responded with "a single word, a vulgar expression for a part of a woman's anatomy."

One of Greenbaum's colleagues immediately removed the word only for the commenter to once again leave the same lewd remark.

So what did Greenbaum do? In his words:

"I deleted it, but noticed in the WordPress e-mail alert that his comment had come from an IP address at a local school. So I called the school...About six hours later, I heard from the school's headmaster...The headmaster confronted the employee, who resigned on the spot."

Other commenters on Stltoday.com are now having a field day, calling Greenbaum a "Thought Nazi" and suggesting that he be fired for outing the commenter to his employer.

Greenbaum is holding his ground, firing back in the comment thread:
 
"Defend the guy who posted the vulgarity all you want. I'm not regulating someone's thought. He can think whatever he wants. I'm moderating our boards. Follow our guidelines and this won't be a problem for any of you. Remember, I said it was a school, right? It could have been a student. I didn't know who it was. I just thought the school might like to know about it. I sleep fine at night."

Meanwhile, here at Daily RFT we're lying awake wondering that exactly the guy wrote that was so insulting. Greenbaum never divulges that seemingly very important factoid.

So, dear readers, what do you think it was? Continue on to cast your vote in our poll, "Possible Vulgar Expressions for a Part of a Woman's Anatomy."