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.