Dealing with Trolls
This is how I deal with trolls commenting on my website (at least, today… strategy might change given time)…
Everyone, say hi to Paul! (This is his IP: 141.150.79.232) Paul left this wonderful comment for me recently. It left me feeling confused as to why someone / anyone would take the time to spew so much vitriol. It really makes no sense.
So let me get this straight… you’re 35 (although you look older), unmarried, childless, and very much involved with your “career”. If you continue on this trajectory, you will die a childless and miserable woman, and worst of all, you will have denied Western civilization (and this world) your progeny. It is because of women like you that whites will be an extinct group within a few hundred years. Your time is very near the end. Good luck with your meaningless career.
Hmmm… Glad to know that I am personally responsible for allowing white people to go extinct rather than it being a process of selection. Aside from that, I am quite happy, have wonderful friends and family, and look forward to my future, childless or not.
There is no room for personal misery when there is so much wonder in the world.
Filed under Esoterica |54 Responses to “Dealing with Trolls”
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Wow! How very annoying!
glad to see that you can cope with this kind of stupidity.
I sometimes forget there are still a few people out there that think this way. I hope they eventually go extinct.
Woah, totally random hate and judgement; I wouldn’t even know where to begin in trying to understand his mindset. In fact, that comment doesn’t even deserve a response.
Although I understand your need to respond to such a personal affront, posting his email address might only bait him more and it’s best not to feed the trolls.
Take no heed Kirsten, just walk away undeterred.
Man, I really feel like I should be able to provide some super witty comment. But this is amazing! You know you’ve made the big time when someone takes time out of their day to write something like this. Congrats?
Also, I love the parenthetical inclusion of ‘although you look older’. I might start trying to frame my comments in the same manner
All I know is that anybody with that much time to do nothing but communicate that much negative energy is definitely a miserable person.
I don’t think I’ve ever come across someone online who has been as positive, friendly and downright interesting as Dr. Kiki (I’m sure off screen you have your grrr moments like everyone else heh) which makes me wonder why anyone would post such nasty comments.
May the gods of broadband deal with pauls IP as they see fit
hint
The path of the righteous blogger is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil trolls. Blessed is he (or she), who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the forum of darkness, for she (or he) is truly his brother’s IM buddy and the finder of lost contacts. And I will strike down offline upon thee with great vengeance and furious pingage those who would attempt to poison and destroy my bloggers. And you will know my name is the Lord of broadband when I lay my vengeance upon thee.
People always say to ignore Trolls, however I know that to be not too easy. If this were the World of Warcraft forums they’d be attacked with the same methods the Trolls use and put to shame by an actual intelligent argument. Basically Trolls are stupid and have the reasoning abilities of a tree stump. Trolls are sad bitter creatures, and hopefully their upcomings will happen, but it probably does all the time since usually their social skills make people say not nice things to them and they deserve it. Hopefully you feel better with a glass of wine/beer/etc and play with fire or some kind of Tesla Coil. Tesla Coils always cheer me up
Keep up the awesome science!
Dr Kiki,
What a sad pathetic messed up individual is Paul.
Keep on producing TWIS and Dr Kiki’s Science Hour - he obviously has NO CLUE (and no taste) as to what he is missing out on.
Love the show(s)
Michael
Hello from Germany,
don’t think a minute of this stupid words. If Paul has good eyes he won#t say “you’re 35 (although you look older)” cause your looking great on my own scala in German i call it Schnuckeligkeitsskala you’re on place two. The mixture of look and voice is the point! The first time i saw Food Science I felt a little bit in love, the sounding of your voice is hot. I hope you could understand evereything I wrote in my bad english.
stephan
Dr Kiki,
In your mission to share the fun and wonder of science and in how I’ve seen you present yourself online, all I can say is, that in my opinion, your a fabulous lady.
Keep it up and don’t let such people get to you. Remember, you have an “army” of minions that appreciate what you do!
Love your content in all its forms.
Mark
Kiki,
Oh noes! What a meanie! Fortunately the twit army won’t stand for such crimes of war! I shall put in a request for appropriate action to be taken on this troll for your chat today. Take care
troubled
What a jerk. Please don’t let him bother you, Dr. Kiki. I think you have one of the most meaningful careers imaginable, and I am jealous of you daily
Also, my wife (of 20 years) and I are also child-free (by choice) and quite happy. So we too, I guess, are ushering in the era of no more white people.
Keep up the great work!
Wow. It’s really sad to see that the unintelligent people in this world try to bring the rest of us down. Don’t listen to this guy, Kirsten. He just wants attention. By the way I love TWIS. Keep up the great work!
Now, be fair; I’m sure “Paul” is just being concerned with what is best for humanity, hence his apparent interest in your production of larval science-communicators.
Presumably this same sense of care towards humanity’s future is why he has, I assume, chosen to remain alone in his parent’s basement rather than venture out into the Big Room, where he might accidentally get a life and beget a future generation of internet trolls.
Wow, this guy is ignorant.
First off, you don’t even look 35. That’s a shallow thing for this guy to say anyway. Everyone thinks you’re beautiful so don’t let this idiots bad opinion bother you. Do what you know and love Kiki. Ignore the troll.
Also, I guess every women has to have a family full of chaps to be meaningful. Ignorance is a bliss.
Dr. Kiki,
I have had my fair share of troll’s myself. Don’t let anyone bring you down!
I wonder when people will stop referring to people from other locales as being from another “race”. Color of the skin is a matter of location not another race
That’s how I view it anyways
Writing this in the cold of night, watching twit.tv
Love your show Dr. Kiki!
The mind boggles that someone could be so nasty just to get attention… and also that there are still people out there who think that the Internet is anonymous and untraceable.
(Please just keep doing what you’re doing. You’re rather good at it.
)
Well it looks like Paul isn’t getting any, and certainly not off brainy babes like Kiki.
I imagine that “Paul” had nothing better to do with his time than to spew trash at those whom he sees as more successful than himself. Seeing this, he feels the need to attack to make himself feel more important. It didn’t work. We who read trash like this see right through the words to the pathetic, miserable excuse for a person that “Paul” really is. Single, married, with children or not, pretty or ugly. None of these should matter to anyone but Kirsten (and maybe her parents!). Kirsten, thanks for exposing this. Most of us out here in Internet-land appreciate you and what you do. Keep up the great work. TWiS is on my subscribed Podcast list.
Wow, when is is a comment like that ever acceptable. That sounds like something a jilted stocker would say.
Let’s give the guy a break though, it’s been a tough week for him. He his white sheets came out of the washer pink, the local Klan Klavern disbanded, the Secret Service sent him a threatening letter and he just got his rejection letter from the Taliban. The poor guy has to take it out on someone.
I’m going to sound very British here, but what a thoroughly disagreeable man.
It always amazes me how brave some people are when hiding behind their computers.
Wow, what an enormous turd! When I was traveling last summer for my fieldwork I met a crazy hare krishna who told me that my research was meaningless. Totally meaningless. I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say. Good job outing that troll!
That’s the way the way ya do it. Always encourage the trolls to go to your personal site, so you can get the IP address. And hey, it’s public information…
Rock on Dr. Kiki!
The funny part of his post is how unscientific it is. Please people when you troll scientists make sure your post is backed up. :p
Love your shows Dr. Kiki I am a regular listener to all of them.
Thanks!
Cool response from a classy lady. Cute, how such a small snippet of writing can speak such volumes about an author. Let’s see, a rising career in science journalism that you thoroughly enjoy is…a bad thing?
And let’s be completely honest (and redundant) here. Dr. Kiki, thirty-five or three hundred-five, you are a total babe! A traffic accident waiting to happen! (Mean that in a good way).
Love your stuff.
You shouldn’t have even bothered to add that sentence to your post where you’re the least bit defensive.
I didn’t realise so many myths about the world could exist in one person. What interest could he possibly have in Science?
Send those types of trolls over to: http://thebritgirl.com/, http://childfreedom.blogspot.com/, http://www.racialicious.com/, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single, and http://www.newstatesman.com/writers/john_pilger
Let Paul reap the whirlwind on those websites.
Another hello from Germany!
This Paul is such an asshole, but now that we have his email and IP, let’s spam HIM!
looks like paul_gnr’s living a very sad life (may be childless… probably his fault… faulty equipment?…)
hey paul; dude see a doctor, stop wasting ppls time. Because of you, Dr. kiki must have spent 2 or 3 minutes (omg! ;-)) worrying about trolls like you. what a fscking achievement, ur mommy must be proud.
————-
Dr. kiki, awesomeness and prettiness aside :-D, you are doing a great job with the podcasts. love science hour (1 of the few shows I actually fire up curl and record live) keep up the great work.
I would say that this comment goes way beyond troll into the misogynist abuser territory. HOW DARE YOU BE WHITE AND UNPREGNANT! …. I’d call the cops.
There is a small problem with printing the IP address, or at least, eg. banning an address or making a complaint about it. A very large percentage of internet users are on dynamic IP addresses at Comcast or some such service (this one is verizon). Those IP addresses are reassigned. A lot of other people are on line at coffee shops and libraries. So, for instance, as I understand it banning an IP address may ban a lot of innocent bystanders, and to report abuse (which you could do easily for most vendors but not verizon) you need a log of exactly when the comment was left.
My own guess is that men who attack women like that are (subconsciously) trying to induce Stockholm Syndrome in the women they attack. That may have been a viable strategy when the population density was very low and people might only meet a few persons of the opposite gender of the appropriate age for mating in their lifetime.
My guess is that men with essentially no opportunity for mates use that as a default fall-back strategy, no matter what the cause; if the man is single because he lives in a place devoid of females, or if he is single because no woman will give him the time of day.
You didn’t deserve that…
Not by a million light-years!
Maybe if there’s anything good to come from this, is knowing how many people are out there that really, really like you, and the work you do.
You’re an amazing person, and we all (collectively) love you.
Bob
“you will die a childless and miserable woman…” it’s funny that some people feel children are a necessity for human happyness. As a happily-child-free adult I wonder why these people don’t seem to remember that they were ever happy BEFORE they had children.
WTF? Paul needs a happy and perhaps to be told that he already has a hole to spew waste products, he doesn’t need to use his keyboard as well.
Child-free not child-less, I don’t have a ferret yet I’m not ferret-less, I’m ferret-free.
Yeesh, maybe Paul needs a ferret.
Kiki:1, Trolls:suck.
Keep it up my friend,
Tony
Dr. Kiki
You are smokin’ hot and do a great job on your podcast bringing science news to the laypeople. Please just continue on unfazed.
you are a great example for my daughters
that’s just sad. I hope when the aliens come they don’t look at people like him
If you feel you ever need a child, you can have mine:)
+ you don’t look a day over 25
Voiceover:And now a helpful hint from the egg-banking lobby…
Picture: Cartoon female face, quizzicle, with a giant question mark.
VO: Can’t decide about kids right now? That’s okay, just freeze some nice fresh viable eggs,
PX: Egg bouncing eagerly into a freezer tray, female face looking on, excited.
VO: in the event of a change of heart about bearing children, surrogacy, or donation.
PX: Cartoon female face, happy, with a giant exclamation point.
VO: This has been a helpful hint from your local egg bank.
Wow, I know I am going to get blasted but while I don’t agree with Paul or his blatherings, I do feel that the loss of Dr. Sanford’s genetic material can only diminish the human race. In a world where Octomoms abound, we need all the high quality genes we can get.
See Cyril M. Kornbluth’s “The Marching Morons” for a scary look at what happens when the intelligent decide not to reproduce.
As one of the morons, I worry about where our best and the brightest of the next generation will come from.
It would be good to have more people like Dr Kiki, they could be her children, students or fans inspired by her. Preferably all three but that is largely her decision to make.
It was interesting (and depressing) to listen to some comments from Gina Trapani on TWIG on (unreasonable) challenges faced by women in public forums. This is more of the same.
Hang in there, and keep on keeping on. Interpreting science to people is hard. But needed. As for the kids bit, well, there are lots of ways to make a positive difference in the world. Kids can be one. But, there are many means of grace.
Look the guys right, he’s also racist, but that doesn’t make him wrong about everything. You should heed him.
About the IP Address, don’t post it, he reboots his router and gets a new one, someone else picks up his bad traffic.
Don’t worry, I don’t mean he’s right about the looking old part, you will always be attractive because your smart.
I mean nice people should have kids is all.
Dr. Kiki,
Now I get to compliment you without feeling inappropriate.
I first heard you on BOL and now on the TWIT network. What a great voice. You have insight and you always sound happy on the podcasts. That is just an uplifting combination.
Then I checked out your site and discovered that in addition to all of that, you are stunningly beautiful. How is it that a network hasn’t snatched you up? Talk about the total package.
I am now a subscriber to your podcasts. I suspect there won’t be many more of them though because there won’t be enough time when you are employed by some national news organization or are hosting a TV show. I’m guessing Discovery Channel. (Please, not PBS.)
Keep up the good work. For every idiot that sends you trash, there are a thousand who recognize the intelligence, talent, and beauty that is Dr. Kiki.
Somehow I suspect that Paul’s real fear is that of himself dying childless and miserable. Something I imagine he has every legitimate reason to fear.
I’m gonna guess that Paul will be dying childless…Perhaps he was just projecting that frustration on to you. Too bad and on behalf of sane, reasonable men I apologize to you. Sometimes we’re embarrassed we share a Y chromosome with his kind.
Really? I mean, really?
How about “Come here often”? or “Was your daddy a thief..he stole the stars out of the sky and put hem in your eyes”? Or “You must be tired…you’ve been running around in my head all day”?
But “Although you look older”? Not a good way to begin the wooing.
My opinion: this is once cyber troll that has to come up with better lines to pick up women. definitely a loser and not worthy of helping the “white” race continue. Bad genes - no need to continue that breeding line.
Bobby
Before reading this post, I expected some nasty message. It must be a message that really bothers you if you would make a post about it. After reading it, to tell you the truth, although I would say Paul’s message is unnecessary, it’s kind of true. You are 35, based on pictures you’ve posted (such as http://www.flickr.com/photos/66121329@N00/3954482004/), I would agree you look older than 35, and I assume you actually are unmarried, childless and much involved with your career. I mean… you’re a science person, you should know that making this post and acting so defensively makes it obvious that you’re actually bothered by these facts.
John, you make a lot of assumptions.
Thanks, everyone, for the rally of support. Much obliged. Really, very much obliged to you all.
It’s the eyes that tell the true story of who you are. They’re honest and truly show your soul.
Have you ever considered collaborating your science knowledge in writing a screenplay. We are writers of original screenplays and one of our ideas is called DNA, where Presidents are selected, not elected.
I just watched the rebroadcast on TIWS with Leo Laporte and found the comparison of Gattica and reality interesting. If you’re interested contact me, I would like to explore and research how this could screenplay could be written.
Thanks, Bill Stephens @ WEMUS Productions
I think Paul’s trying to ask you out!
Although Paul’s comments were not appropriate the comments on this blog attacking Paul are far worse than what he said to you. Your guests have called him “idiot”, “racist”, “stupidity”, “evil troll”, “nasty”, “isn’t getting any”, “sad”, “childless”, “waste product” and “embarrassed we share a Y chromosome with his kind”……All this based on a few inappropriate sentences. I feel that your guests have judged this guy far worse than what he said to you. Seems to me that your guests are more trolls that he is….
And your idea of trying to hurt him by posting his IP address, as someone mentioned before he resets his router gets a new IP and your minions attack the wrong person…
Everyone that disagrees with the “approved group” is not a troll…
I wish you well,,,,Seanda….
John, you don’t think the message was nasty? Paul says she’ll die miserable, that her career is meaningless, and even makes vague quasi-death-threat racist/sexist remarks about her time being near an end (I mean seriously now, unless it’s a death threat, 35 is hardly near an end), and white women not making enough babies for his satisfaction, and your focus is on the fact that what the guy said about age and marital status was true? C’mon now.
Seanda, most if not all of those labels are justified given what Paul said. Meanwhile, what Paul said about miserable deaths and meaningless careers is not. Your false equivocation is just that.
Unfortunately, it stings when ANYone says something so hateful, regardless of who it is, or how much you value his or her opinion. But from an outsider’s perspective, it seems obvious that this person is miserable and insecure. He’s lashing out and just saying whatever he thinks will hurt the most. With that in mind, should you really take this guy seriously, considering he thinks “whites will be an extinct group within a few hundred years” is the mother of all insults?
Also from my outsider’s perspective, I think you’re really pretty, incredibly smart, and enthusiastic about what you do = a trifecta of good qualities
Though I am not much for newage tripe, The Four Agreements is actually excellent. One of the agreements we should make with ourselves is “Never Take Anything Personally”. Why? Because ultimately it is reflection of the giver and where they are in life, not us.
That said, you rank right up there as a hot, smart, geeky (in an incredibly attractive way) girl. Most of us wish you nothing but the best and would count ourselves lucky to be in the room you light up.