MJS Story on Arrested B&S Commenter

Here is the MJS story on the B&S commenter who was arrested.  Here are some snippets:

But police say the writer was a teacher himself - and the past president of a teachers union - apparently posing as a teacher-hater.

James Buss was arrested Thursday by West Bend police, and the 46-year-old Cudahy man could face criminal charges. He has been suspended from his job as a teacher at Oak Creek High School.

Buss, a former president of the Oak Creek School District’s teachers union, is on an indefinite leave of absence from the school pending further investigation, district Superintendent Sara Larsen said. He teaches chemistry and has been employed at the school since 1994.

Buss didn’t return phone calls to his home.

But Owen Robinson, a West Bend resident and administrator of bootsandsabers.com - a collection of news and conservative commentary where the message was posted at 6:50 p.m. Nov. 16 - said Friday that it seemed that “Observer” was “posing as a conservative, right-wing whack job to discredit” the Web site’s discussion of teachers’ salaries.

Robinson also criticized Buss’ arrest as an overreaction.

“The comments were not a direct threat to teachers,” he said. “This is free speech.”

[...]

Police are seeking criminal misdemeanor charges of unlawful use of computerized communication systems and disorderly conduct against Buss, Netko said.

Larsen, the Oak Creek superintendent, said she talked with Buss before his arrest Thursday. She declined to say whether Buss disclosed his motivation for the posting.

“It’s very disappointing,” Larsen said. “It’s not something you would expect a teacher to do. This does not reflect on the quality of teachers in our schools.”

Larsen sent an e-mail about the posting to School District staff Friday morning.

It’s a balanced story.  Hopefully it will blow over quickly.  Buss is going to go through enough crap for making a stupid comment without going to jail.  This should serve as a good object lesson for everyone.

1) Comments made on a blog are solely the responsibility of the commenter.  Don’t think that you can get the proprietor of a blog in trouble by posting threats and stuff… you can’t.  Jed and I don’t have any more responsibility for what you write than Dell does if you wrote it on one of their machines.  Everybody is responsible for their own actions.

2) You are not anonymous on the internet.  This should go without saying in this day and age, but it’s worth remembering before you decide to be a tool in someone’s comment section.

1. “This does not reflect on the quality of teachers in our schools.”

   Yes it does. He is a teacher in your school district and past president of your union. You can’t just ignore the bad ones and pretend everything is great. At least not if you are living in a world of reality.

   Posted by on December 01, 2007 at 1108 hrs




2. Isn’t there a nickname for his sort? A Moby? That is to say; opponents of a blog[or group of allied blogs] that attempt to destroy the reputation of a blog by posting offensive, over-the-top comments that can include racial or ethnic insults and threats of various levels of violence.  For instance one very “well known blog” had a problem moby who kept popping in to post his desire to “nuke” various Islamic countries. He disrupted a serious debate about Islamic terrorism by his

   Sure, we known its all hot air, but too many people use the comments section to define a blog’s owner. So, I’d still consider banning that sort of commenter from posting here in the future. It may be their free speech, but its your blog that can end up being branded with a bad reputation. Its not fair, and yes, it wasn’t what you wrote; but it gives opponents something to smear your site to unfamiliar readers.

   The owner of that “well known blog” found that the fallout from allowing over-the-top ranting did cause problems for his blog. As a result, he began to ban those sort of ranters after giving one warning. It depends on what you want to accomplish with your blog. Unfiltered, no-holds-barred debate is exciting but it can result in harming a good reputation with a wider potential audience.

   One of those difficult decisions bloggers have to consider.

   Posted by on December 01, 2007 at 1904 hrs