Solving My Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit Problem

Posted on February 2, 2013    Posted by      632 Comments

As has been detailed recently, there’s a Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit out there on the InterWeebs who likes to use my name to whip up his gibbering followers, who then often come over here to troll the comments. Whether I ignore him or not doesn’t matter, so fine. I might as well get something productive out of it.

Here’s what I’m going to do: From now until the end of 2013 (and backdating to January 1st) when the Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit in question posts an entry on his site in which he uses my name (or one of his adorable nicknames for me), I’m going to put $5 into a pot. At the end of the year, I’m going to tally it up. All the money, up to $1,000, will be donated equally to the following organizations:

*RAINN

*Emily’s List

*Human Rights Campaign

*NAACP

Now, what this means is that, since I don’t want to have to read the Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit’s site, I’ll need someone to monitor the dude’s site, and keep a spreadsheet for me. So I’m calling for volunteers. I will compensate you with signed first editions of The Human Division and The Mallet of Loving Correction when they come out, plus I’ll donate $250 in your name to go into the pot (on top of the up to $1,000 I will donate) to be disbursed to the organizations above. Email me with your interest.

As noted above, I’m backdating this to the first of the year, so the Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit in question has already caused money to go to each of these organizations. Well done him! I am sure he’s delighted to be helping to advance the causes of equality for women, gays and people of color, as well as funding an organization dedicated to helping those victimized by sexual assault. And each time he posts an entry that invokes me, one way or another, that’s another fiver into the pot. That’s 200 opportunities this year for him to prompt a contribution! I hope he takes advantage of all of them.

For my part, however, this is the last time I plan to note his existence here, at least until the end of the year, when I tally up the pot and send off the donations. Tune in then to see show much I get to give! I’m looking forward to sending those contributions along.

Update: People are asking if they can contribute too. Sure. Here’s how we’ll do this: Note in the comment thread here  that you want to play along (or send me an e-mail if you’d prefer to be private) and then note the maximum amount you want to contribute for the year. Commit to donating 5% (i.e., even if the Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit never mentioned me again, you’ll donate 5% of your maximum donation to at least one of the organizations listed above, or ones that serve the same folks — women, GLBT, people of color, those who have been sexually assaulted). At the end of the year, when I tally up, you donate. Easy!

Update 2: As of 5pm Eastern, we’ve had pledges that could total up to $12,000. That’s awesome, folks. Thank you!

Update 3: Amazed at the number of people willing to volunteer to watch the RSHD’s site and/or create a program that watches it. Thanks, folks. I’ll pick someone over the next couple of days.

Update 4: As of 8pm Eastern, we’ve had pledges for up to $20,000. Holy crap!

Update 5: As of 11:45pm Eastern, the pledges total more than $26,000. A fine sum to end the day on. Thanks, folks!

Update 6: As of noon Eastern on Sunday, February 3, we’re up to over $30,000 in pledges in the comment thread. This is more fun than the Super Bowl.

Update 7: It’s 6:36pm on Sunday, and we just hit $40,000 in pledges. Fantastic.

Update 8: Monday, February 4, and at 10:30am we’re at $44,605 in pledges. Sweet!

Update 9: 7:20pm on Monday and we just hit $50,000 in pledges. Fifty thousand dollars.  Honestly, I don’t know what to say at this point other than thank you. Oh, and that I have something special planned to celebrate, it’s being worked on now. As soon as it’s done, I’ll put it up!

Update 10: To celebrate reaching the $50k milestone, I commissioned a gift to everyone who has pledged.

Update 11: It’s Friday, February 8, and we’re up over $60,000. Where do we go from here? I’ll tell you.

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632 Comments on “Solving My Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit Problem”

  5. Great idea. I’d volunteer (and will if no one else does), but after getting into a ridiculous argument on twitter with a conservative author, I’m trying to keep away from depressing reading.

  7. What a wonderful and creative way to turn crap into diamonds. To support and boost the dipshit offsetting, I’ll match it, up to the same $1000.

  9. Ooh, that’s delicious. Almost as delicious as the ruined orange layer from the rainbow birthday cake we’re trying to make here today that I am compassionately putting out of its misery. I’m guessing you may have to call this off early, if he only gets 200 opportunities ;-p

  12. I support the work of some of the organizations you’ve chosen, but not all of them. Otherwise I’d jump right in.

    Regardless, I commend you for finding a positive solution to your problem.

  16. Nice touch, Scalzi. What about tossing a buck into the kitty every time one of Dickweed’s Dittoheads comes on here to spew, too?

    If I start making inappropriate comments about you on my FB page, will you start tossing money in the post as well? I’m sure you could get lots of writer friends to come up with snarky comments.

    Or maybe we should do a Pro Wrestling Thing – cutting promos on each other and PayPaling a couple bucks into the kitty every time, to really boost up the donations…..

  17. I’d volunteer, but I don’t trust myself enough to remember (ADHD brain). As it is, I mostly like the charities and applaud your efforts. I’d discuss my specific issues with one of them, but it’d derail the hell out of this and you really don’t have better options in that space. The big-name GL”BT” charities ALL have the same problem. The hint I just dropped is all you’re gonna get out of me. Good luck and I hope the tax deduction further warms your heart in 2014.

  20. Since you don’t read his site, you might not be aware he has at least one other, where he is also posting comprehensively about you. You will, rightly, not care very much about that one either, but they’re separate posts and so maybe should be taken into account as well. Not linking, as per request.

  23. I would love to volunteer, if I weren’t a graduate student with too much time and not enough money to contribute (though I’ve donated small amounts to some of those groups in the past).

    I’m really curious about what the link is now, though I know you’re not going to provide it (as I wouldn’t).

  25. Man oh man. I really want to help with this, but I’m guessing RSH(N)D’s website is triggery as ****, and reading it would also do bad things for my faith in the general decency of mankind.

    I’ll see what I can manage with regard to a donation, however.

  28. Admire the concept but as much as I’d love a signed copy of your work I have enough contact with racist, homophobic dipshits on the rest of the interwebs. I will donate to the cause, put me down for a C note at the end.

  30. Would there be a way to just spider his whole site for mentions of your name (and assorted variants) at the end of the year, and then nobody has to read any of it?

  34. I don’t have the strength to monitor that site myself – but in honor of those who do, I’ll match as well, up to $200.

  35. I sometimes am surprised at just how much of an evil genius sf writers can be. Brilliant.

  36. Oh… I didn’t see the update. I’ll play. I support RAINN, so I’ll make a donation each time…and I’ll make a donation to another charity I already support. Since he’s a racist freak, I’ll donate to the Lakota Kids in his name.

  38. I’ll commit to matching you fifty cents on the dollar across the board, including the extra donation(s) for the volunteer(s).

  41. Shiloh Walker’s post made me wonder: Will you (John Scalzi) make your donations in the RHSD’s (real) name?

  43. I love the way you come up with ideas like this one. You’ve turned his words around and made something positive out of something negative. Thank you.

  44. Because I am a) lazy, and b) don’t believe in sponsoring torture, I just created a IFTTT recipe that monitors the RSS feed and appends a record to a Google Drive spreadsheet every time it sees the word “scalzi” in the feed.

    https://ifttt.com/recipes/77385

  45. Why yes, please *do* count me in!! I enjoy putting my mouth where my money is… oh wait. but I’m all in for sure!

  46. I’d suggest adding the SPLC, or perhaps delegating those donations to others.

    People like the dipshit hate the SPLC.

  47. BW:

    I don’t know if I’ll donate in his name, since the organizations might not allow that (or might not want to be associated with him). But believe me, the racist sexist homophobic dipshit in question will know.

    Jonathan Hendry:

    There’s nothing stopping people from donating to the SPLC too, if they like!

  48. I’ll do up to $100 to RAINN (more than 5% of which would be donated anyway, so no loss either way!).

  49. An exquisitely elegant solution, sir. My disposition doesn’t let me monitor the RSHD’s website, even for such a valuable gift, but let me know the tally at the year end, and I will throw in 10% or $100.

  50. “I don’t know if I donate in his name, since the organizations might not allow that (or might not want to be associated with him). But believe me, the racist sexist homophobic dipshit in question will know.”

    He’s aware.. not sure if him being a dick costing you money is quite the way to show him…

    “Nice touch, Scalzi. What about tossing a buck into the kitty every time one of Dickweed’s Dittoheads comes on here to spew, too? ”

    Also, you owe a buck

  51. This is a variant of my absolute favorite ever counter-protest tactic. It works best against hate-oriented groups because they’re easy targets. You get a few well-off sponsors of your cause to agree to donate $X every hour the protest lasts. Then you go out and meet the protestors, act REALLY REALLY NICE, like bring them coffee and donuts, and thank them for their support. When they get indignant, you explain that every hour, your organization is getting $X from people sponsoring their attendance.

    They go away fairly quickly. You get to be very very nice, and also very very nasty, at exactly the same time. You don’t even have to confront them – just letting them know about the deal is enough – but the being-really-friendly-bringing-donuts part is FUN.

    I love this idea, and wish I had money to toss into the ring, or the fortitude to monitor the website in question, because I’d love to help. I’ll have to settle for cheerleading. (If I was still in my previous grad program in sociology – where I focused on community & technology – I would be thrilled by this and would want to write an article about it.)

  55. Spectator:

    “not sure if him being a dick costing you money is quite the way to show him”

    I do a fair number of charitable donations on a yearly basis in any event, so this will just be part of that. The good news is this means he’s also helping me get a tax deduction! Whooo!

  58. I can’t hit triple digits, but I’ll happily kick in 50 to whichever of the charities has the lowest totals at the end, to help bump them up. And if you could, please *PLEASE* donate in this doofus’s name, just so his monniker is on all of their donation literature.

  59. Excellent–we did this in Idaho whenever the Aryan Nations did their marches. People pledged an amount of money per minute the march went on, with the funds publicized to go to the most liberal causes we could find (the scholarship to send LGBT Hispanics to dental school was a favorite). They tended to dial down the marching once they figured out the more they carried on, the more money went out.

  60. I’m a starving artist with no spare cash, but I can donate five minutes a pop of volunteer service at Seattle’s LGBT outreach center, Lambert House, up to twenty hours. Five hours minimum. Can that work?

  61. I can create a website if you like monitoring the dipshit’s site using my advanced government training and mad data architect ‘skillz’ and add some nice visualizations to offer different insights and perspectives. I can also set it up to accept donations and such from others playing at home.

  64. This? This is PURE GOLD. I remember this creature. Eating a steaming hot bag of dicks is too good for it. This? This is better, and actually legal.

  70. I don’t know John, maybe ignoring him would work if you actually tried it. I don’t think passive aggressively talking about how much he’s not worth talking about really counts as “Ignoring him”

  71. “…the Mallet has been placed into its warming chamber.”

    You actually *warm up* the mallet before malleting people? That seems almost excessively considerate; I would be tempted to just let those who deserved the mallet in the first place deal with the discomfort of being whomped by a cold mallet. ;)

    (The charity idea in general is awesome, though.)

  73. Well this should be interesting. Evidently someone I know from High School is a friend with this Vox character. Will do what I can to donate as well – good on you for using this imbecile to assist others!

  75. More than happy to contribute- after reading the link and the marital rape comments making me sick to my stomach- I’ll happily contribute $100 to the end cause, however it needs to be broken up. Much love for a brilliant anti-hate campaign.

  78. TheBechtloff:

    “I don’t think passive aggressively talking about how much he’s not worth talking about really counts as ‘Ignoring him'”

    Well, as noted, this will be his last mention until the end of the year. And there’s nothing passive aggressive about what I’m doing to him now. I’m aggressively using his racist sexist homophobic nature to promote causes he almost certainly hates.

  79. You actually *warm up* the mallet before malleting people? That seems almost excessively considerate;

    That sort of depends on you definition of “warm,” doesn’t it? What would you think of a Boltzman temperature of about 200 meV? (Not MeV — that would be hard on the poor Hammer.)

  80. Please put me down for a $1000 contribution.

    May I ask a procedural question, please? When we tally up, would you prefer that we send the money directly to the various charities or should we send it to you so that you can bundle it up and send it on? If the former is the case, then it neatly addresses bearing’s reservations as it allows the donor to send money to some but not all of the charities.

  81. I would volunteer but due to relentless mockery of Mr Wings of Dark Perfection – as I now like to call him (we’ve become close over the last 2 hours and one of his followers has called me a bitch, which has deeply touched me), I might be banned from his site. However, John, I will merely note that you are a much better person than I am.

  82. My daughter is openly gay and is employed by PROMO (Missouri’s statewide organization advocating for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality through legislative action, electoral politics, grassroots organizing, and community education)

    She is female, politically active and gay! Your bigots would have a field day. Please include me for up to $250 because I am so proud of her and the work she does!

  83. Yeah, even sweet autographed editions by OGH wouldn’t make up for monitoring that shit.

    However, I enthusiastically support the endeavor and will tune in at the end of the year (which is when I get off my ass regards charitable giving — it’s not that I’m heartless, I just procrastinate) and kick in a couple bucks.

    I don’t know the rules, whether you can actually make the donation in his name(s), but I’m sure you can mention him on the check or bank transfer, like “From: JS, in ‘honor’ of RSHD” (bwa ha ha optional). I’m sure the charities will let us know what they prefer.

    Also, kudos to @Margaret and friends for supporting gay Hispanic dentists. Brilliant.

  84. As others have noted, I am in awe of your brilliance for turning an asswipe into silk panties :) or something like that anyway.

    Trolls are such an issue these days so it’s heartening to me (as an Indie Author) to know that even YOU are subjected to this crap. I’ve been in this industry (publishing) since 1980 (been writing since 1969) and have seen it gettin’ uglier with each new social media leap “foward” making it easier to start a new Dead Cat War. Then again, I did miss the First Dead Cat Wars of the Usenet Age so … ^)^

    (*meowr*)

    Scratch his eyes out, sir.

    -Friday
    @phoenicianbooks

  85. JohnD:

    Everyone’s who’s pledged would send in their own donations. Less work for me, and more control over the donations for the pledgers (and also, then they get the tax deduction).

  88. You don’t have a Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit Problem. Inferior people are here to amuse us. What you have is free Racist Dipshit comedy that dances for your entertainment. Throw him pennies and otherwise ignore him.

  89. I’ll volunteer to observe the idiot continue to promote his idiocy, in the cause of furthering what he is so idiotic about.

  90. Brilliant idea and amazing response :). Being in England, I will see what the equivalent options are here.

  91. I’m generally okay with reading things mean people say. I’ll be a monitor, but I’d need someone to link the website for this so far unnamed person.

  92. I’ll be interested to see if this works. Years ago, when I was trying (and failing) to quit smoking, my roommate came up with a similarly brilliant scheme – for every cigarette I smoked, she would give five dollars to Jesse Helms’s re-election campaign. The combined guilt (because no one does guilt like us Catholics) of being responsible for sending money to that vile man plus of negatively impacting her meager and miniscule coffers kicked my habit in a jiffy. I’ve never smoked since.

    Here’s hoping this strategy will be similarly successful here!

  93. This may very well be playing into his hand. The idiot wants attention, and he is getting it. I don’t know what is going through his mind, but I wouldn’t be surprised there is some version of “Scalzi is so afraid of me, he’s paying money to keep me quiet.” If I where him, I’d mention you every day just to rack up the donation. He has noting to lose and everything to gain.

    I’m not criticizing anybody for donating to charity, but warning that it may not have the desired effect.

  96. Chris Sears:

    “I wouldn’t be surprised there is some version of ‘Scalzi is so afraid of me, he’s paying money to keep me quiet.'”

    As noted before, there’s very little I could do one way or another that wouldn’t play into his delusions of grandeur and his desire to be seen as opposing me in some way; the fellow has an infinite capacity for “HA HA HA THIS IS GOING EXACTLY AS I PLANNED.” That being the case, this is my way of accruing a benefit from his adorable mancrush on me.

    That being the case, let him mention me as much as he likes, in any manner he likes. The end result are donations to causes that he almost certainly despises.

  97. We’ve used this approach to shorten local visits from the funeral picketing scum. Who bear a remarkable philosophical resemblance to RHSD.

    I generally don’t give to big national orgs. More bang for the buck/hour giving/volunteering local. But there are some fine anti-racist anti-sexist anti-homophobic anti-dipshit orgs in my town that have tight budgets. I already give them donations and volunteer time, and they’re going to get bonus money and time from me this year.

    I’m out of the monitoring gig, though. My doctor told me to avoid immersing myself in festering dipshittery, even in a good cause.

  98. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to throw in at the end of the year, but please post and remind us at that time. I am all in favor of discomfiting this personage, and doing some good too.

  100. I would like to help. I can also so horrible things about you on my blog for $5 a pop. I will also keep track.

  101. I’m in. 1€ per mention, up to 200€ for LSVD. (Different country, same cause – if that’s okay with you).

  102. Mr. Scalzi,
    I’m very willing to volunteer. Would it be inappropriate to ask that whatever amount of money you decide to distribute on my behalf is concentrated on RAINN? I have had several friends affected by sexual abuse and rape, and so of these four charities this is the one most personally compelling to me.
    -Blake, The guy from Houston who knows how to pronounce stuff

  106. Chris, I think you may be misinterpreting “the desired effect”. The goal here isn’t to get Teddy to shut up about him. The goal is to create a link between two things which were, in all likelihood, going to happen anyway: Teddy’s continuing obsession with John, and John’s charitable donation activities for 2013. This will give John some small amusement, and may tweak Teddy’s nose a bit.

  108. Just be sure, when making your donation, to fill in the donor-name blank with RSHD’s name and contact info so they’ll thank him. >:D

  109. I cannot read this POS’s vomitus, but Husband & I are in for $100, just for your doing this, plus another buck each time said POS invokes the name of Scalzi.

  110. @ Sooz: Not sure about the others, but I’d suggest Stonewall for the LGBT charity. I’m in for a quid a pop to them, up to £200 total.

    Also, any other UK types doing this: make sure you tick the “Gift aid” box when you do the donation, ‘cos it means George Osborne has to fork out an additional 28p for every pound you donate. You’d be amazed how many people forget.

    Finally, I suggest the name “Voxathon” for this endeavour.

  111. P.S. At a quick tally, pledges are up to an end-of-year maximum $11,425!

    Note, there is some ambiguity in that figure, as some people’s stated pledge amounts are vague (“up to 5% of maximum”?), or in Euros, et cetera. But, at a rough guess, we’re doing pretty well so far!

  112. I’ve just trawled through VD’s blog and found 10 references to JS in January, if you count mentions of Whatever and include all the oh so clever insults. And I may have missed some because I couldn’t bring myself to do more than skim the posts. I’m off for a shower now and a consoling cup of tea…

  114. If by chance this actually prompts RHSD to quit mentioning John and switch off to other targets (and I’m only guessing it might) I will give/work more for anti-racist anti-sexist anti-homophobic anti-dipshit orgs on behalf of the next target. And the next. Because I’m pretty darn sure that’ll be good company to be in anyway.

  116. Not only is this brilliant, not only would I be DELIGHTED to help, but I will investigate whether we can make some form of announcement about this on Escape Pod to see if we can get you A)More donors and B) Possibly provoke the desperately pathetic little wiener into doing more good than he’s done in the world up to now:)

  117. LOL. Vox Day. You and Ed Brayton of Free Thought Blogs could start a club for people Vox Day is obsessed with…

  121. John – my apologies if this has been asked already. I did look, but can’t see it, but if you don’t reply I will assume that an answer is upstream: does mention of you in the comments thread count? If so, by Vox, or by anyone who is not one of your commentators? (They’re a limited number: won’t be hard to tell).

  124. It all depends on my finances at the end of the year, but I will do my hardest to commit at least $50. If I’m looking OK by September, I’ll put more in. Such is life as a poor grad student…

    Love what you’re doing, though. It’s fun :)

  125. I love you, John, but I think you spend too much time on this clown. This is a dude who’s great philosophy of life is ripped off straight out of a video game (GTAIV if you care) which should tell you all you need to know about him.

    The simple solution is to just grant limited access to the mallet to one or two of your trusted regulars and he will soon be forgotten.

  127. ynysprydain:

    The way I’m doing it is once per entry; i.e., five mentions in a single entry count as one $5 contribution. I’m of the opinion that it should be targeted at the site proprietor himself, since he’s the one calling the tune over there.

  130. “. . . this is the last time I plan to note his existence here, at least until the end of the year, when I tally up the pot and send off the donations. . . .”

    I do so much prefer this post to the last one on this subject, which I found ridiculous; an ill-advised venting.

    For me, I didn’t think the piece that sparked the whole McRapey angle worked at all. But those things happen when you put lots of stuff out in the world, and whether it worked or not, you never know what some loon is going to latch onto. Engaging at all, participating in any way, probably has no upside, so I quite look forward to ignoring the loon for the entire year, after which I hope things are wrapped up as quietly as possible; without comment even.

  131. Jerome O’Neil:

    He doesn’t actually impinge on my time much, other than me cleaning up the messes he encourages others to leave here. And now, of course, every time he mentions me what I will mostly think is, “Ah, more money in the pot!”

  133. It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness. I’m putting $1 towards our local domestic violence shelter for every $5 you donate on the dipshit’s behalf.

  134. Oh dear, the dipshit thinks he can intimidate Liz Williams… (I really shouldn’t have gone to his blog, but this is actually hilarious.)

  135. Reading these posts makes me wonder how common these sorts of dipshits are. There’s a fairly well known misogynistic homophobic dipshit (who I won’t mention by name as that would draw his attention to this thread) that is well known for harassing horror writers. Are there annoying homophobic dipshits out there that harass romance or mystery writers?

  136. For the life of me, I can’t find the place to email you. But I would like to throw my hat into the ring as a volunteer. Email should be connected to my account here already (I don’t want to leave it for the flying monkeys).

    Also, I have little to nothing in the way of, you know, money, so I’m also offering a volunteer hour exchange. Up to 25 hours of my time to be donated to a local charity (don’t know which one yet as I just moved here) that would totally annoy our special friend.

    I will also give $25 (the only money that I have) to the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists (an organization that I am proud member of and I am just sure causes his brain to melt) in his honor at the end of the year if we hit $1000.

  137. The name I have heard for this strategy is “the lemonade strategy.” If life gives you lemons (e.g. RSHD) make lemonade. I’m in for 50 cents a pop up to $100 if you’ll post the total at the end of the year.

  138. I want to second the request for a reminder post at the end of the year. I’m unemployed right now, but if I have a job by then I would love to toss in $50 or so.

  139. >Oh dear, the dipshit thinks he can intimidate Liz Williams… (I really shouldn’t have gone to his blog, but this is actually hilarious.)

    Thank you, I try. It has enlivened a quiet Saturday evening here in dear old Blighty. But I am disappointed in the quality of the abuse. Someone has obliquely called me a bitch, and it has suggested that another regular might try to make me cry. I dimly remember this level of trauma from infant school. I’m going to go to bed, give them time to regroup and gather their thoughts, and hope for a better quality of vileness on the morrow.

    I am much less classy than our host, whose response has garnered applause across the blogosphere, but I shall try to provide vulgar amusement in the meantime.

    Liz

  140. My partner and I will pledge up to $200 — 5% of the total per instance — on behalf of all terrifyingly overeducated pagan lesbian couples attempting to destroy marriage by engaging in it, and for the benefit of uppity women in general.

  144. @Liz Williams: I had the pleasure to meet you in person during latest Octocon – the contrast between your actual self and their projections adds quite much to the hilarity ;-)

  147. I will happily donate $1 per incident, however I am going to donate to Canadian Charities of the same stripe as you are so I can get my canadian tax deduction :-)

  148. I think this campaign, while noble in its intent and goals in many respects, gives way, way, way more publicity (and you know what they say about publicity…), not to mention attention, energy, and focus to this individual than he deserves.

    You are a famous writer and he is… a nobody, really… whose only current claim to fame is that he has the attention of a famous writer. I wouldn’t give him even that much notice. It just encourages the bad behavior…and may even result in his drawing the attention of more followers on his end, which IMHO is the last thing this world needs.

  152. I’ll preemptively donate $100 ($25 each) on Monday. That way I can do it through my employer and get them to use some of their money for good instead of evil.

  155. I’ll pledge one half of what Mr. Scalzi is pledging. Including the support for the monitoring because God knows I wouldn’t have the patience to read that crap. (No signed books though because I’m an engineer not a writer.)

  158. John, you are an Evil Genius! You are the master, the man, -and- the most!

    I won’t volunteer to monitor La Beale’s blog, because that much nausea would be injurious to my health.

    But ‘m in for $100 total. I’m putting it on my calendar to check in here end-2013 to see where we are and where I send the money.

  159. And now, of course, every time he mentions me what I will mostly think is, “Ah, more money in the pot!”

    When Peter Bowditch was doing this on MHA [1], his only comment on trigger events was “KA-CHING!”
    [1] Yes, that was in the ancient days of UseNet.

  160. Patty:

    “You are a famous writer and he is… a nobody, really… whose only current claim to fame is that he has the attention of a famous writer.”

    Well, see. He won’t have my attention after this at all, since someone else will be monitoring him for me, something which I appreciate greatly.

    Aside from that, look: This dipshit is going to drag my name through crap no matter whether I ignore him or not. I’m happy to transmute that into something useful.

  162. $1 per instance, $200 max, to SafePlace here in Austin, because they do great work allowing abused women and children to get away from assholes like RSHD.

  166. This dipshit is going to drag my name through crap no matter whether I ignore him or not. I’m happy to transmute that into something useful.

    So this is sort of a composting operation for the Day Garden?

  167. What happens when a deep-pocketed malevolent entity decides to use this tactic against you?

  168. My thoughts:

    1: An idea most full of win and awesome,
    and
    2: er…that said, why is he a problem that needs solving? Your previous posts have sort of been “don’t feed the troll,” and now you’re making him the center of a fundraising drive? (a deliciously ironic and helpful fundraising drive, but still)

  172. Put me down for up-to $100 for the year. I’ll toss in an up-front $50 if you start calling him “the *Narcissistic* Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit.” (Because (a) it’s an accurate addition and (b) it gives the phrase the same scansion as “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and thus makes it fun to sing.)

  173. BelligerentGnu:

    “Your previous posts have sort of been ‘don’t feed the troll,’ and now you’re making him the center of a fundraising drive?”

    The trolls are the gibbering monkey followers of his that wash up on the site. You should still not feed them. The Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit doesn’t troll the site; he does all his nonsense from a distance. And he’d do it regardless of what I did.

    Think about it:

    Most of the malevolent entities that would decide to bother with me are too cheap for that. The ones with really deep pockets have more expensive targets to hit.

  174. I love it when kittens come back inside the house after playing in the snow! They smell so clean and outdoorsy!

    [NB: Comment has been kittened — JS]

  176. Kittens are especially adorable when they wake you up in the middle of the night with their fluffy paws! I could just SNUGGLE THEM SO.

    [Meow — JS]

  177. This is an outstanding idea, just brilliant.

    If only we could see the look on his face. You could put it on pay-per-view and have the whole scientific community, humans rights organizations, feminists e.t.c just sit back and enjoy.

  178. In for at least $200, more if I end up with the job transfer that will seriously up my salary.

  180. I’m just gonna go ahead and donate to one or multiples of your charities. (Amount to be determined shortly.) Knowing me, I’ll forget by the end of the year, and will have already budgeted for Xmas. So instead, I’ll just get it in now.

    ETA: First check – Emily’s List needs to have more security on their donation page. Will find alternate method.

  181. Count me in for $100. I’d volunteer to read the site for your mention but I’m afraid I’d throw my computer or my tablet through the wall because of teh stupid.

  182. Oohhh.. that must have been a particularly rancid stench bomb for you to have to resort to the Kitten Mallet. Carry on. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

  188. I don’t know how someone could be kittened and then come back for seconds.

    It demonstrates a level of stubborn stupidity I wouldn’t have expected from even the fox news audience.

  190. Take a bow Mr. Scalzi!

    I am short on money, but I’ll commit 1 hour of charity work every time the RSHDS mentions you!

  192. ” even though the sound of it is really quite atrocious…”

    I’m in for $250, all to Planned Parenthood. Because WOMEN, dammit.

  194. I saw a dog in a sweater in the snow today. One of those little fluffy dogs. It looked a little ridiculous, frankly.

  195. Brilliant move sir! I did this a few years ago with a woman who kept crapping on a site I enjoy. She would drag abortion into any conversation & would not go away. Finally in frustration I said I was donating $5 to planned parenthood in her name every time she brought up abortion. It cost me $100 but she eventually went away. That was a lot of money to me but it was worth every penny.

  196. Eric RoM:

    All the kitten posts are from the same fellow. Normally I would leave the names as the originals but in this case it was a little more vulgar than I would have preferred. So I went ahead and changed it.

  198. The Bechtloff: You seem unaware this particular “vendetta” has been going on for the better part of seven years now. Pretty much all of the action, such as it is, coming from the RSHD in question. Ignoring him and hoping he’ll go away hasn’t worked so far. Ignoring the nincompoop and hoping he’s going to give up in disgust and stop his rather childish tactics doesn’t appear to have worked thus far either. How long do you think our host should be trying before you’ll accept it isn’t going to work, though? Ten years? Twenty, maybe?

    Just how long do you think someone should have to put up with a bully poking them to try and get a response? How many trolls is our host expected to Mallet in order to satisfy your insistence on this strategy? How much filth do the rest of us reading the site have to put up with while this goes on?

    Here’s a better idea: if you have someone like this (similarly loudmouthed, similarly tenacious) harassing you, you can try ignoring them for a period longer than seven years, and see whether the problem goes away. Get back to us all and let us know how it goes, hmmm?

    (Yeah, you found one of my hot-buttons and jumped on the fscker. I was a target for school bullying for the entire twelve years of my primary and secondary schooling, and I never ONCE found that ignoring the bully caused them to de-escalate. Rather the contrary, to be honest).

    In the meantime, I’m going to do my own variation on this. For every trollish follower of the RSHD that our gracious host mallets or kittens this year (and yes, I’m going to have to go back through all the comment threads to find them, oh the humanity!) I’m going to put 5c into a jar (no upper limit). At the end of the year, I’m going to tip out the small change, and split it four ways between the following Australian groups:

    * The South Coastal Women’s Health Service (which is local to me, and which I’m going to donate to, if possible, in the name of Theodore Beale, misogynist!)

    * The International Women’s Development Association (an aid organisation which gives “gifts of change” – basically for a certain amount of money, you’re sponsoring a program or service for women in need in the Asia-Pacific region. Women who aren’t generally white, by the way. I figure that pings both the racism and the sexism).

    * The National Women’s Justice Coalition here in Australia, which works to remedy the institutional bias against women in our justice system. (Again, for his misogyny and sexism, and because of his repeated statements that he would prefer women to be disenfranchised and without legal rights).

    * Gay & Lesbian Community Services (another one which is local to me here in Western Australia). This one is to ping the homophobia side of his personality.

    (10c so far in this thread alone… keep going, guys.)

  199. I was in a writing group which That Person was briefly in. I had to read an entire manuscript of his. You damn betcha I’m in on this. Put me down for $100, with the likelihood of more if it’s been a good year when we tally up.

    Thanks for doing this, John. Very good idea.

  200. Update:

    Holy cow, guys. We’ve got up to $20,000 in pledges in this thread alone. I have additional private pledges in e-mail, but as to the ones people can see, here: $20k.

    I repeat: Holy cow!

  201. Okay, since I was thwarted by the Emily’s List page, I have gone and given 50 to PP. Would’ve liked to given more but I’m on the rent paycheque this week and budgeting is tighter. :)

  204. I’ll commit to $50 total to be spread amongst the groups as you desire/need.

    Because this is awesome with a side helping of awesomesauce.

  209. I know it’s early in the year, but KittenCon 2013 looks like it’s going to be awesome this year. I can’t wait!
    (that is my post, it wasnt edited)

  211. $100 from I Should Be Writing – You rock, John. I’d much rather give money than read RSHD posts.

  213. great idea, but it seems the troll or whatever he is got the attention he wanted. now everyone knows his site. this post is link bait for all it seems

  217. PixelFish: you are most likely correct. I am curious, is he being ridiculed/attacked because he disagrees with Scalzi or Scalzi does not approve of his opinions? A frightening thing to think really…

    Or did this guy draw first blood from Scalzi?

  218. Such a great idea, JS.

    I’ll donate at least $50 to the NAACP in December. I already give to Planned Parenthood and Amnesty International.

    Good for the volunteers who are going to read this Dipshi*t’s site. They’re tougher than me.

    And a big whoot whoot to all those who are donating to good causes in the name of a bigot! Delicious.

  221. Are we counting posts on both his blogs? I have made a shiny new spreadsheet and just want to know how many worksheets I should make.

  222. @NeverEver: He isn’t being attacked. He’s being identified and then made useful. For the last seven years, at varying times, this person has disagreed with Scalzi, but until recently when he’s taken to referring to Scalzi by an uncomplimentary and libelous name and ramped up reference to Scalzi in his blogs, there hadn’t been much of a noticeable issue. However, due to this ramped up reference period, folks keep coming over from Yonder and pooping on the carpet. (If you google this person and Big Idea you can see that Scalzi has in the past given him a platform for his book, and therefore disagreement alone does not constitute the reason for the recent discussion.)

  226. @neverever, he’s being targetted because he’s engaged in cyber bullying. He’s writing ridiculous/offensive stuff about JS on his website which has encouraged his readers to visit Whatever and leave trolling comments.
    It seems to me that John’s new approach is a really astute response to this particular instance of bullying because it changes the frame. Ignoring the bully gives him free rein and has caused him to escalate. Trying to argue or justify yourself in the face of deliberate malice is obviously counter-productive. But raising money off the bully’s comments changes the game entirely.

  228. Ah yes, good old Vox. I remember he would troll and send trolls to our humble little blog, World O Crap (back when it was on the free salon blogs). He was convinced our founder, the Amazing SZ was a man, and homosexual, to boot. He was a hoot. I’ll go through our archives and see if I can find any of the posts SZ did on him, or any comments he smeared on our threads. (current blog addy: http://www.world-o-crap.blogspot.com )

  229. Didn’t actually finish my thought up there. If I find any posts, I’ll do a repost and link to your fabulous idea for solving the problem of VD!

  230. I’m in for $5/mention, up to $100.

    I’ve also just donated $15 to my local cat rescue group in honor of this thread’s three kittenings (this isn’t an attempt to affect anyone’s behavior; it’s just a result of seeing so many references to kittens and charity so close together).

  232. i already make monthly donations to rainn, but i’m in for another $100 at the end of the run. also, 10 minutes of volunteer service to rainn (or my local rape crisis center) for each mention (calculated as are your donations).

  233. Classy way to deal with this. I want to chip in $0.20 per comment up to $50 with a 10 percent minimum.

  234. The response to this has been awesome. I won’t know until later this year what I can contribute, but I’ll contribute something.

  235. John, you rock! And if this idea of yours of turning the RSHD’s insane vendetta into support for causes he hates doesn’t make his head explode, I don’t know what will!
    And BTW, I must say that I admire those whose intestinal fortitude allows them to swim in the RSHD’s midden in order to monitor it – my one (very short) visit was more than sufficient for me! *reaches for brainbleach at the memory of said visit*

  236. I am in for a hundred dollars! I do not have the patience to monitor this jerk, but i can and will give the money.

  237. This is so great! My funds are limited, but I’ll commit to $25 no matter what, and work on at least doubling that by year end if I can.

    I may also learn to make some delicious Schadenfreude Pie….

  238. I’m a college kid and my funds are also pretty limited, but you know, I never give to charity. I’m considering this my Good Deed for the year. Probably next year too. But come on, this is hilarious, I have to get in on it.

    I think I’ll reserve the right to lower my cap to $150, depending on my financial situation a year from now.

  239. Making a note here that we’re at $22,075 in pledges on this comment thread (I’m noting it here so I can use this as the future staring point to further pledge computation).

  240. Some thoughts:
    He probably is an idiot, but so is linking to rational wiki. It criticizes his use of ad hominems, while using ad hominems. The article on him was closeminded as fuck. It was like being at my parents church as a teenager all over again.
    I don’t understand why you can’t keep track of the name count yourself, considering all you would have to do is F3 Scalzi for every article. It doesn’t seem fair to force his tripe on someone else.

    One last thing: $5 per time? with a cap of $1000? This makes you seem incredibly cheap considering you were complaining about only being able to make 150k if you self published your book.

  242. John,

    Are you still turning hate-filled speech into pretty kitteh rainbows and unicorn fart bubbles?

    ‘Cause while I love this charity fund-raising to spite the hateful, the Kitteh – love and Unicorn fart rainbows is the salted nutz!!

    Also, your Sci-fi authorship skillz are mad, and your ingenuity flows like water from Victoria Falls!

    It’s snowing here, and I have a little cabin-fever… can you tell?

  243. Daniel D:

    “This makes you seem incredibly cheap considering you were complaining about only being able to make 150k if you self published your book.”

    I don’t recall it being a complaint. I did note it was less than the $300k someone suggested I would make.

    Aside from this, I’m delighted you seem happy to spend my money for me, no doubt steeped as you are in the intricacies of my personal financial data. Nevertheless I will keep my contribution where it is. The good news is, other people have chipped in! And $22k in pledges seems a goodly sum to me.

  244. Can I throw in a flat $20 instead of even knowing which particular racist sexist homophobic dipshit (RSHD) you’re talking about? (It’s a sad commentary on the state of the intertubes that there are more than a couple to choose from.)

  246. Alright, that criticism was out of line. Any donations to those charities are a net good. I apoligize.

    But still no answer for linking to a site that is as unreputable as your tormenter?

  249. Daniel, your concern is duly noted.

    Somebody duly note Daniel’s concern!

    John, put me down tearcher’s-salaray-making butt for a minimum $25 plus at least one shiny nickle per. Not much, I know, but I’ll look at the numbers come December and try to do better.

  250. Daniel D:

    Of all the things the Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit in question is, my “tormenter” is definitely not one of them.

    Your complaint about the link is noted.

  252. Cally: My problem is with rationalwiki. It is equally as bad as conservapedia ( and John’s tormenter). Both dismiss ideas without even considering them. They encourage conservatives and liberals to continue screaming about how stupid each other are rather than coming to any sort of understanding of one another.

  254. Jackie M:

    No reason to apologize. It’s not a contest, and every pledge is deeply appreciated.

    Daniel D:

    You should probably read the site disclaimer. At this point I’m done pretending to be nice to the dipshit in question. People are of course able to find other sources of information about him if they choose. Google is their friend.

  257. We’re a little low on cash right now, but I’m thinking $10/month would be easy to squirrel away. So I’m in for $120!

  258. Shorter Daniel D. “I am a concern troll who has, as yet, escaped kittening. I will now push the envelope as far as I can.”

    To Our Host Scalzi: Count me in for $500 at $2.50/incident, to equivalent Canadian charities since those are the ones the CRA accepts. Mostly because Daniel D annoys me and I want to support causes he hates.

  259. Daniel: my mistake; I thought you were referring to the RSHD’s site.

    As for the site he linked to, whatever its faults, it does quote the RSHD’s own words which show that he is, indeed, a RSHD.

  260. John (not Scalzi) at 10:05 pm: I’m pushing no envelopes, and I’m not trolling, just wish people on both sides of the political spectrum would stop yelling and maybe listen to each other for a bit. But I’m done now.

  262. Holy shite! I met this guy way back in 2004 or so when his first SF book came out, and after chatting with him for a while, I thought, “Wow, what a self-important blowhard.” And now I see it was all downhill from there.

  267. My household is in for up to $100. Maybe more if that big promotion comes down the pipe. But certainly we can do 10% of what the Scalzi Clan is ponying up.

  268. Along with my annual donations to Planned Parenthood, Doctors Without Borders, and Habitat for Humanity, this year my family will be donating $50 each to the four charities above so you can add another $200 to the tally.

  270. Came into this one a little late. As a former Admin on several sites, I would be more than happy to donate my time. If not… show me where to send the money!

  271. Okay, put me down for a dollar a pop, up to a c-note.

    I am nothing if not sucseptible to bandwagoning.

  272. Good point Daniel D, in my experience those who cry for tolerance about their beliefs and opinions are some of the most intolerant.
    The money raised is great but I cannot help but think it sad that for many people they need some type of prompting, prize, recognition etc in order to support something.

  273. All I know is right people and wrong people can be just as evangelical about their positions. And all this disagreement needs to stop. It’s really hurting the chances of compromise between the right people and the wrong people. ::goes back to humming Creed:: …with arms wide open…

  275. We could sing “Kumbaya”….

    Or I could just jump in with my pledge of $50. I’ll increase that if I find work.

  277. Let the record state that aside from good money raised for great causes, today’s post & thread have led to the following Moments of Teh Awesome in my household:

    1) A re- viewing of Scalzi’s Flickr stream from Creationists’ Museum (complete with accompanying essay read aloud).

    2) A lovely off-key singing of NRSHD (see Dr. Bonzo @6:37).

    3) A jog via comment link to see kittens in sweaters (see Other Bill @8:44)

    4) Renewed joy in the fact that I, public high school teacher, offer _Zoe’s Tale_ as a lit circle choice in my SF Lit course.

    So, it seems the RSHD who’s mancrushing on you has made my day many times over simply by promoting things he hates. We win the internets!

  278. I cannot help but think it sad that for many people they need some type of prompting, prize, recognition etc in order to support something.

    Or maybe they’re in the habit of supporting various charities anyway, and gamifying a pledge this way just helps them get a bit of extra fun on the side.

  282. Daniel D: Something to keep in mind is that one of the issues frequently up for discussion is whether women, minorities and those who are not gender-normative have a right to an opinion. There can be no free exchange of ideas with someone who doesn’t believe the other party is entitled to their views.

    John and the poor sap doing the counting: It appears the jerkwad in question has taken to using your last name as an adjective to describe so-called “beta males”, which appears to be the usage that’s driving so much traffic. I’m hoping that’s considered a mention of your name for the purposes of funding these fine organisations, because really it feels like that’s one toy it’s worth taking off him.

  283. I suggest you open a youcaring.com fundraiser for this. It’ll lock in the money and allow the wonderful folks (count me in for $25) to donate as well!

  285. I’m also in for (up to, but I assume it will be the full amount of) $100. Let me add that this is spectacular and I Iove the use of the Internet for good. Let me also add that there are clearly a ton of great people in this comment thread and in your fanhood. I’m @Seamus_McTodd and would love to follow some of you. :)

  286. Fantastic idea – please count me in. I’d like to match you, dollar for dollar. Please put me in for $1,000 and I’ll gladly do 20% at the end of the year even if your name doesn’t grace his site again the rest of the year.

  288. Who says turd polishing is a wasted art?

    I want to start Autopedia: The Free Encyclopedia Anyone Can Edit Provided They Swear Undying Allegiance To Gulliver the Gozerian

    I’ll need a scepter. Maybe a hammer or Mallet of some kind…

  290. At the last count of the evening, because I’m sleepy:

    $26,000 in pledges (like, almost exactly thanks to that last contribution there).

    Sweet. And thank you.

    I’m going to head to bed now but will leave the thread open. There will be a non-trivial chance the thread might sprout some trolls whilst I sleep. If you encounter them, leave them be and I will mallet them straightaway in the morning.

  291. I’ll go in $500 total split equally between the org’s you finish with ($125 each as stands but if you later ad others I’m fine with your choices).

  292. “If you encounter them, leave them be and I will mallet them straightaway in the morning.”

    As you command, my master. ::coooookiiiiiie:: Also, goodnight. ::cooooookiiiiiiiie:: My master. ::cooooookiiiiiiiiiie::

  293. WOW this has been fantastic. Since there are so many volunteers I think I will instead donate money – I already donate to RAINN every year so I’ll add another $25 to that donation and, just to pinch the sore spot, will donate another $50 to vday.org.

  294. @ neverever

    great idea, but it seems the troll or whatever he is got the attention he wanted. now everyone knows his site. this post is link bait for all it seems

    Yeah, that’s kinda the whole point of this subversive little enterprise. It works like the bumper stickers that announce plans to eat two animals for ever one animal veggies don’t. It gives the RSHD the power to stop tens of thousands of dollars in donations to causes to which he objects, and all he has to do is show restraint. If he doesn’t, it demonstrates that he cares more about blowing hot air than about his supposed principles.

    The money raised is great but I cannot help but think it sad that for many people they need some type of prompting, prize, recognition etc in order to support something.

    1) What tigtog said.

    2) Are you seriously lamenting that people aren’t doing good for the right (translation: your) reasons? Because that sounds really, really petty.

    2b) Some people budget their charitable giving and leave a slush fund for unplanned donations so they can help unexpected causes, maybe have some fun doing it, and donate the remainder to something they find worthy but less important than the causes for which they explicitly budget.

    3) The joy of giving is compounded by helping RSHD help John help others.

  300. Kittens!

    There are not enough prizes in the world to get me anywhere near that site. However, I’ll kick in .25 per reported mention up to $50 to Kiva.org, which provides funding for microloans to people all over the world trying to run small businesses to feed their families, including thousands and thousands of women and non-Anglos. Even better, the money given is loaned out and repaid and then can be loaned out again to another person, meaning that this donation in IRSHD’s name will be helping people he hates for years to come. (I was going to do it anyway, but this method of contribution is extra fun.)

  302. Robert N. Lee:

    So you’re saying that because I once let this fellow have a Big Idea slot, I somehow deserve the shit he’s piled on me recently? Or that I should have known that four years later, and for entirely unrelated reasons he’d decide to be a twit to me? Are you under the impression that if I had not given him the slot, that this dipshit would somehow be less antognistic now?

    Robert, are you trying to give the fellow a race on the dipshit front, or is that just an unintentional side effect of your bad logic here? I’m not going to dispute that giving the dude a slot was not one of my best ideas, to put it mildly, but that doesn’t change the fact you’re engaging in something akin to victim-blaming. One Big Idea slot given doesn’t mean I should just accept this dipshit’s calumny as my just desserts, and you’re being a bit of a truculent dick to suggest so.

    What this does go to show, certainly, is that no good deed [however ill-advised] goes unpunished. In any event, I don’t think we need to worry about the RSHD getting another Big Idea slot here.

    Beyond that, even if you believe I deserve the shit this dude’s sent my way, then at the very least four deserving organizations serving women, gays and people of color will benefit from it. This will be a delightfully easy penance to bear.

  303. Is it wrong that I enjoy the kittenified posts so much that I am halfway tempted to create a fake troll alias just to see what wonderful new things can be said about kittens?

    At any rate: 50 Quatloos on the home team. That is to say, come the end-of-year tallies, I’ll donate the contents of my swear jar. And I swear a fuck of a lot.

  304. For the sake of information – at 5c per troll malleted or kittened so far this year, my jar now has $A1.25 in it. Given there were at least two political posts, and a number of contentious issues raised here and there throughout the past 34 days (it’s the 3rd here), I think this speaks highly of Mr Scalzi’s calm and reasoned temperament.

  305. Is there a summary somewhere of the nicknames Vox typically uses for our esteemed host? I’m interested in writing my own tracker — for amusement purposes if nothing else, as we apparently have plenty of talent already on the job — but I don’t know what patterns to search for besides ‘scalzi’.

  306. @Tim Pierce – He’s pretty big on “McRapey” (from his hilarious, if bizarre, misunderstanding of Scalzi’s blatantly satirical post) and he generally refers to commenters here (and other progressive/social-justice-oriented folk) as “Rabbit People” (and variants thereof). There may be others, but I’m happy to say I don’t peruse his stinkhole quite that thoroughly.

  309. This makes me smile in so many ways. Not the idiot, he makes me want to punch things, hard with Hulk hands. But as a MSW and Women’s and Gender Studies grad student it cheers me on to know that I’m not alone with my fellow social workers in the fight against evil. Mr Scalzi, and everyone who has donated… you are all awesome.

    I would donate too… but again being a grad student going to Chipotle is a big night out for me. So I’m just gonna share this blog with some people who would wanna donate and could instead.

  310. Oh what the heck… Count me in for $1 each time, up to $200, with a minimum $100 donation, which I would be happy to just paypal to you as soon as my tax refund hits, just to make sure I don’t forget (as my feeble little mind is oh so fond of doing.)

    But, as a side note, my I ask a no-commitment-attached favor of you?

    I didn’t find this post due to following this blog, although I likely will attempt to follow this blog from this moment forward. I found it by following Phil Plait, and then decided to contribute after seeing other idols of mine like Mur Lafferty and Starla Huchton comment, especially after seeing Ms. Lafferty happily throw her support behind this drive.

    Therefore, I ask this, although my contribution does not hinge at all upon your decision:

    Might it be possible for there to be a future blog post listing all contributors who don’t mind being publicly listed? I know it sounds a bit garish, but I wouldn’t mind a little publicity, since I’m trying to build my own writing career here on the inter weebs, and a listing on a high profile blog like this couldn’t hurt.

    Please don’t take what I’m asking in the wrong way: I fully intend to throw my donation in the hat you’ve provided, even if my additional thoughts warrant only a “move on.” But, if I somehow garnered a bit of notoriety from being mentioned in a post of yours, and should said notoriety grant me some degree of success in selling my upcoming ebook, and future works, it not only benefits me, but allows me to possibly increase what I can afford to donate.

    Regardless, I’m in. Even if it doesn’t benefit me a single bit, this is a cause I am happy to back. I look forward to helping you use the ignorance one weak-minded primate expectorates to support the rights of many. No Hate looks so much better in action than as a flashy sticker.

    Kudos sir, kudos.

  313. For my household, $20 to each of the four mentioned, when we get around to it but within the next year. More to one of them, at least, when the total is announced.

  314. I’ll commit to a 25%-up-to-$250 match, barring unforeseen financial disaster. (In the event of unforeseen financial windfall, I’ll increase it.)

    I suppose Doctors without Borders and Heifer International can’t get all my money every year.

  315. i would volunteer on the contributing to the charities portion, but i’m on SSDI, and $600/month gives VERY little wiggle room. i already donate to specific charities every month, and there just isn’t any more ROOM for me to do more.

    but on the watching – i can do THAT. i has no life, i lie on my bed 90% of the time, reading and/or being online. easy peasy for me. something to *DO*, on top of that…

  317. Scorpius:

    Emily’s List is fully capable of making a bum choice now and again, and will take appropriate criticism when it does. It’s the aggregate mission and choices I’m looking at. In any event the individual donors are able to pick and choose among the choices so if any prefers one over another, that’s fine with me.

    (And no, I am not permanently awake at this hour. I’m heading back to sleep now.)

  319. @Dave Crisp, thanks for suggesting Stonewall, I will also look for others (women’s and race charities) and chip in at least £50.

  320. I don’t see how this scheme solves a problem. It might be a fundraising tool, but I don’t think John would refrain from speaking out against RSHD ideas if money were promised to to an RSH organization if he did.

    Given the amount of attention this business has occupied and given that there are probably way more Whatever readers than readers of RHSD, I question who is living rent free in who’s head to what degree.

  322. This is entirely wonderful. Definitely up for donations (unfortunately will have to wait until the end of the year until I know what I an afford). And just as a deliciously amusing aside..the idea that someone tried to intimidate *Liz Williams*? Seriously? As a longterm admirer and former Milford participant…wahahahaha!

  323. @ Scorpius

    Thanks, Scorpius. I’ll take that into account when dividing my contribution amongst the four charities. In general, I avoid donating to organizations that exist chiefly to fund candidacy* anyway since, if I want to contribute to a campaign, I just donate directly to the campaign or its PAC, that being more efficient and any, as John aptly put it, bum choices become my own. Anyway, I appreciate the info. EMILY’s List is the only one of the four I knew nada about until John mentioned it.

    *as opposed to an org like the NAACP for which contributions are incidental

  324. >Definitely up for donations (unfortunately will have to wait until the end of the year until I know what I an afford). And just as a deliciously amusing aside..the idea that someone tried to intimidate *Liz >Williams*? Seriously? As a longterm admirer and former Milford participant…wahahahaha!

    *

    Yes, I’ll have a look at the end of year situation for donations, too. I like the idea of Kiva.

    Gaie – they’ve been relatively nice to me compared with the Guardian comments threads. That in itself is a worry.

  326. Some ideas are not worth considering.

    “Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act on them” — Thomas Jefferson

  327. Given the amount of attention this business has occupied and given that there are probably way more Whatever readers than readers of RHSD, I question who is living rent free in who’s head to what degree.

    I’m not sure what the number of readers involved has to do with anything; seems to me a more proper gauge of who is living rent-free in who’s head (wow, I suspect that clause is a grammatical trainwreck…anyone?) lies in (a) the nature of the posts each writes about the other, and (b) the tone of said posts. RSHD writes frequent, spittle-flecked rants about Mr. Scalzi with significantly greater frequency than Mr. Scalzi writes posts that mock the guy, including the present one, which is already established as “Hey, since we all support these various causes already anyway, let’s do so in a way that might irritate the RSHD!” in tone.

  328. “Given the amount of attention this business has occupied and given that there are probably way more Whatever readers than readers of RHSD, I question who is living rent free in who’s head to what degree.”

    I don’t think it matters, really – it’s about the delicious irony of RSHD’s rants generating money for a good cause.

    In any case it’s a double win situation for John. It’s not like RSHD and his followers will ever try to better themselves or question their ideology. Might as well make the best of it.

  329. Well done Mr. S. Count me in for $10,000.
    Her is the good news. We are winning. The repukes are a dying breed, the white male power base is slowly dying. The christians are going, ever so slowly but surely, away as more and more people realize the value of reason. VD should be required reading so that people can see the victory we have won. One day it will strike young people as strange that anyone would have such a weird idea as the gold standard, they should be educated that there were such evil people as the RSHD so that these ideas never are taken seriously again.

  331. THIS JUST IN: Thanks to an anonymous philanthropist, all trolls who visit this site should be aware that every time you fling feces here from now on, another LGBT person of color will receive political campaign donations and another young white heterosexual woman will be awarded an academic scholarship to attend college or grad school rather than staying home to breed.

  333. Blackadder:

    I’m going to be blunt and say to you that your comment has all the marks of someone trying troll what’s going on here, from the outsized pledge, to the verbiage, to the back-end information listed with your comment. So for the moment at least, as I have an overabundance of caution, I’m going to set aside your pledge when I count up totals.

    If indeed you are genuine, then of course I apologize for my suspicions; this is, you’ll understand, just the sort of thing that those who would be opposed to it would love to troll with something like a post such as yours, to get me and the commenters here all excited. Think of it as a corollary to Poe’s Law. In that case I hope you’ll forgive me my overabundance of caution and still donate at the end of the year.

    I would like to note as a general item, however, that I know at least a couple of Republicans and several Christians who have pledged to this thing (as well as, of course, many white males). What the RSHD (who isn’t a Republican, as far as I know) does is on his own head; I would be hesitant to blame him on anyone but himself. He’s kind of a freelance, equal opportunity irritant.

  334. Don’t forget that Emily’s list is not a tax deductible charity.

    Gulliver, I don’t see how NAACP could make candidate donations, incidental or otherwise, when it is a tax deductible charity.

  335. I’m in. I can’t math right now due to headache, but put me down for a max of $300 by the end of the year, probably to Planned Parenthood or Vittana (similar to Kiva, but for students).

  336. Ran across this before bed last night, was happily singing to myself in the shower this morning:

    Narcissistic racist sexist homophobic dipshit –
    Even when he’s proven wrong, the bully doesn’t quit it.
    Scalzi’s turned his hate to cash, and charities will get it…
    Narcissistic racist sexist homophobic dipshit!

    I blame Dr. Bonzo. Also, I’m in for $200, because this is made of weaponized awesome.

  340. Megpie71
    I’m sorry you were bullied but that’s life. I’m a huge nerd I’ve had my fair share of bullies as well. BUt all I’ve seen John do in the past few days is passive aggressively talk about how much this guy is not worth talking about. If John is unhappy with what this guy is saying about him he should either ignore him or attack him head on like a man. All I’ve seen here in the past few days is a circle jerk of people saying “He’s so not worth talking about, let’s not even say his name as we talk about him over and over again” I’m not a disciple of this guy, hell I’ve had full blog posts calling him out when I think he’s being a jackass.

    http://landsharkattacks.blogspot.com/2012/06/vox-day-protecting-us-all-from-dangers.html

    But again if John has some things to say about him say if directly like a man. None of this “I won’t even say his name” bs. Use his own quotes against him, call him out directly, hell, even debate the dickhead. And if he doesn’t want to do any of that because “he’s not worth it” or he “Doesn’t want to draw attention to him and increase his blog hits” then ignore him.

  342. I know I’m late to the party, but I’ll match 10%. Might by able to do more by year-end (trying to sell a house, currently have two mortgages), but I know I can do $100.

  344. The Bechtloff:

    It should be fairly obvious that this is what I am saying about him, and to him.

    It should likewise be fairly obvious that I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks as regards the appropriate way to deal with this dipshit. I didn’t put it up for a vote, and I’m not obliged to jump through anyone else’s hoops because they appear to think I should or must.

    It should additionally be obvious that while I’m aware that the Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit in question would like me to treat him with any sort of seriousness, and it irritates both him and his gibbering monkey followers that I don’t, I don’t care. I don’t refer to the dipshit by name because it amuses me to call him Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit; as a delightful bonus, it is also an extraordinarily accurate assessment of him as a human being, certainly more than his own preferred nickname for himself.

    The shorter version of this: I’m doing my own thing here; don’t expect me to do anyone else’s.

  345. Count me in for $200 in addition to what I already donate to PP and others.

    And thanks XtinaS at February 3, 2013 at 10:52 am for that mention of Vittana. I now have another charity!

  347. Bunch of commentables!

    1. I woke up this morning with a realization that I can use this model anywhere, for any racist/sexist/homophobic trolls, rather than engaging them the way I normally do & wasting precious brain power. THANK YOU, Mr. Scalzi, for that. Your blog has been an excellent education in best practices in comment-management all told.

    2. @Blackadder, in case you end up not being a troll, what’s with the Christian-bashing? There are plenty of Christians who see reason & can reconcile science w/faith. Easily, even. (And the gold standard was a fine idea for its time, but we can’t go BACK to it.)

    3. @lumbercartel I love the quote. Even if TJ was a horrible racist dipshit himself, he had his perceptive moments.

    4. I forgot what 4 was for. (I did honestly forget, but couldn’t resist leaving it for the lyric.)

    5. THE KITTEN-MALLETED COMMENTS ALL HAVE PINK ICONS *ded of squee*

  348. “I’m sorry you were bullied but that’s life.”

    Being bullied is not life.

    “I’m a huge nerd I’ve had my fair share of bullies as well.”

    Somebody get some juice to the God_Damn_Nick_Mamatas signal.

  349. By the time you’ve used “attack him head on like a man” AND “say it directly like a man,” all I’m hearing is the delightful mewling of kittens.

  350. @The Bechtloff

    John can do what John wants on John’s blog, but as a reader and commenter I’ll just say that Mr. Scalzi has offered me is a better way, and a much more fun way, to deal with trolling of this kind (with 99% less frustration and work than what you offer). In my almost-two-decades on the ‘tubes, no amount of debate or calling out has ever stopped or deflated a racist misogynist troll, and has usually led to escalations & worse. (Still dealing with a resultant stalker from a usenet debate in the 90s.)

    Link-farm all you want; doesn’t change what life is in this world.

  352. This is a lovely idea, Mr. Scalzi! A similar tactic was used against abortion protesters outside a clinic. One bright fellow counted the protesters, then went into the clinic and made a donation. He came out and thanked the protesters and told them to come back next week and bring their friends, because he was giving the clinic $5 for each protester. It really messed with their heads and the clinic staff were very touched.

  354. @Shannon – glad it’s not just me giggling like a schoolkid over his initials. So I think my donation will go to Planned Parenthood, in honour of VD.

  356. @Shannon Leight: My current giving response involves both the local Planned Parenthood clinic (anti-VD) and the local free clinic (anti-TB). With bonuses for the local Boys & Girls Club and the food bank.

  357. Long time reader, first time commenter, I just wanted to say that this was a brilliant idea. Count me in for 100 dollars max at 5 per mention, 20 min.

  359. This is total and utter brilliance, and I like the backdating part.
    And reading the kittened comments has been a fine activity on a stormy sunday :)

  360. This is great! I do wish you hadn’t chosen the RationalWiki article on the man to characterize him, because their invective is sufficiently harsh that it made me think, “Wait, that’s so not-objective that I have to disregard it and look for something less bilious.” The wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Beale is more objective but far less entertaining. Recalling him from Usenet days, yeah, he does tend to fit the ‘pouch used to hold warmed water for ablutions of private parts’ category.

    I also note that he’s a member of the SFWA, and commiserate your obligation to defend his interests, though in a circumscribed domain.

  361. If you want entertainment (for certain values of same) read the edits history at WIkipedia. It’s amusing.

  362. Phalluster:

    Once again I am skeptical of the sincerity of this particular pledge, based on various reasons, so once again I am not going to add it to the official tally.

  363. Brilliant idea. I’m in for up to $1000, 1-to-1 match with you; mine will go to Lambert House (a safe space for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender teens) in Seattle.

  364. @The Bechtloff:

    I’m sorry you were bullied but that’s life.

    And there’s the essential, self-serving bullshit at the heart of it all. Hey, if bullying is just “part of life” (like bad weather), then we should all just STFU and let bullies carry on with whatever harassment, intimidation and abuse takes their fancy, right? WRONG.

    With all due disrespect, Bechtloff. I hope you’re not a parent — or have any kind of job that involves prolonged contact with impressionable children. To inculcate in any child the idea that bullying is a “fact of life” rather than anti-social abuse that perpetrators should be held to account for is not only distasteful but dangerously irresponsible.

  365. I said this on Twitter and I texted it to you, but I want to be on the record here as well: I will match your personal contribution, John, up to $1000.

  366. I like the cut of Kat Goodwin’s jib. I’m adding a second $200 for kiva.org, because they do great work and because my tax refund was unexpectedly large, so this is a way to put that money to better use than I would. (And because I have no reason to believe that the RSHD will restrain himself, I’m making both of my donations as soon as that refund hits my bank account. That way I don’t forget.)

  367. Please count me in for $1000. I am a big fan of the idea of using one of them internet “pledge aggregators” (not sure if this is correct terminology).

    I confess that, after sampling some of the RSHD “oeuvre” (referring to the blog), I initially thought he was a caricature, a collective internet persona designed to provoke and do mischief. It’s quite astonishing that RSHD is an actual human being that, aside from his internet exploits by night, probably leads a reasonably normal life by day. I find it hard to imagine how someone with such very, shall we say, interesting and strongly held views is able to survive a single day without succumbing to apoplexy many times over. I mean there’s them weeeemyn and other funny people everywhere! Or maybe it’s that I have been leading a reasonably sheltered life outside the US for a while now.

    At any rate, sorry for the digression. I am glad to offer my support.

  368. John:

    Sorry if this is out of order, but could I make a suggestion to Whateverettes who’d like to be supportive but are short of cash? How about calling your local shelter or rape crisis center and saying six magic words: “What can I do to help?” Money is awesome, but so are people whose investment of their time (and talents) can make a disproportionate difference.

  370. Money is very short here these days, but this is such a good cause that I’m in for $200.

  371. @DuhMitree: ” confess that, after sampling some of the RSHD “oeuvre” (referring to the blog), I initially thought he was a caricature, a collective internet persona designed to provoke and do mischief.”

    I know exactly what you mean! As a friend of mine and I agreed after perusing that blog for the first time a little over a week ago, one’s initial reaction is to wonder if the entire blog is some sort of performance art whose goal is to expose the malevolent idiocy of the most bigoted, vicious, ignorant, paranoid lunatic-fringe cults in our society by ranting and posturing in an even MORE ludicrous, MORE absurd way on the usual themes…

    But after a while, you realize, egad, no, he’s for real. He’s sincere about this preposterous, grotesque sewage he’s spewing.

    Weird.

  372. My household is in for $200 for the charities mentioned, as well as a doubling of the usual Planned Parenthood contribution.

  374. Lovely idea. $100 from me, though it’s going in part to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force instead of the Human Rights Campaign, because reasons.

    (Given the nature of RSHDs in general, I’m fully expecting this RSHD to do some sort of fun-house mirror-image version of this, and rake in lots of contributions — fake ones — for various pathetic groups.)

  375. I don’t see why you claim RSHD as your problem. If you optimistically put the percentage of asshats at 1% that still means there are 3.4 million of them just in the US. Lifes too short. Stick with the 50% that have a brain. Yeah I’m an optimist.

  376. And at 3pm, the in-thread total stands at $34,045. If I add in what’s been pledged to me in e-mail, we’re at $36,605.

    For perspective, each time the RSHD puts up a post that mentions me by name or nickname on his sites, that’s $183.02 that goes to organizations that cater to women, gays and people of color.

    Excellent.

  377. I go away from teh internets for a couple of days and all sorts of fun and good deeds break out amongst friends.

    That’ll learn me.

    So I’m in too, what the hell, $5 a throw, up to $1K.

    now going to figure out how to obtain some sort of internet-capable device I can attach to my wrist so I’m never ever away from the fun again.

  379. Add me in for $200, or 0.2 Sd(*). This is more entertainment than I ever thought could be generated by RSHD or his like.

    Sd = Scalzidonation unit of measurement = $1000

  380. People, you might as well pony up your full amounts now and save yourselves the pain of monitoring the RSHD’s sites, because he will max you out, and cackle with glee at every step. (OK, I’m just guessing at that last part.) He holds you in as little esteem (or less) as he holds the causes to which you’re donating, so money going from you to them isn’t a bad thing from his point of view.

  381. Back when you were carefully not linking to him, I felt slightly proud of myself for figuring out that the RSHD was Vox Day. Now you’ve outed him and I can’t feel special anymore. *sigh*

    Oh well, there are more important things in life than feeling special. Things like donating to charities that support social justice, having polite discussions with atheists about faith and science and such, and advocating sound economic theory.

  382. Rex Little:

    Obviously, the dipshit is going to do as he pleases. And every time he does, as it involves me, I get the satisfaction of knowing just how much money goes out the door to help causes he hates. This isn’t to silence the dipshit; it’s to affirm that a fine way to combat hate and nonsense is with help for those that his hate targets.

    So let the dipshit max it out; I’ll pay my share gladly. And as we’re closing in on $40k in pledges, that’s a lot of help he’s motivating. Finally, he’s good for something.

  383. As I routinely send $250 to EFF to support their crusade to maintain the rights of Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshits worldwide to spout their rhetoric for us all to “enjoy”, the least I can do is balance that out with a pledge of $250 to the Scalzi plan. I would like to match dollar for dollar but financially that might be a stretch for me. Since this will continue through the end of the year, I’ll revisit the amount of pledge in hopes of raising it by then.

  384. I’m going to pledge. But, given his views, it only seems appropriate to let my wife and daughters vote on how much. I understand this will inevitably lead to my downfall as a viable society. I’ll let you know how that works out for me.

  385. @ Mike

    Gulliver, I don’t see how NAACP could make candidate donations, incidental or otherwise, when it is a tax deductible charity.

    Charities are free to stump for, spend on behalf of and urge votes for particular political candidates so long as they are not officially associated with the candidates. The technical term for this is soft money. EMILY’s List appears to exist primarily for this reason, though I admit that, having only recently learned of them, I could be wrong. The NAACP exists as an umbrella civil rights organization, and most of its activities regarding specific political candidates revolve, AFAIK, around candidate endorsement, but not actual campaigning.

  386. I’d also commend the people who are giving their time – having worked for several voluntary organisations, finding people willing to volunteer, even on a restricted basis, is always a big deal. It’s often a huge relief to regular volunteers.

  387. @Mike

    Google up 501[c]4’s, as compared to 501[c]3’s. Donations to 501[c]4’s are generally not deductible, while donations to 501[c]3’s are. Many [c]3’s have affiliated [c]4’s set up specifically for lobbying purposes. If you want to deduct your contributions, you give to the [c]3. If you want it to go to lobbying, you give to the [c]4 and forego the deduction..

  388. To extend, make sure when you give that you know the tax-deductible status of your contribution if you intend on claiming a deduction. Emily’s List, for example, is not a 501 at all but a PAC, and donations to them are NOT tax-deductible. NAACP is a 501[c]3 and contributions to them ARE deductible.

    You will find that orgs list their deductability status on their donations pages.

  389. I’m in.
    I’ll donate up to $50 to RAINN, BUT I’ll match that with a donation to our local Rape Crisis Center. I wish I could promise more, but my own finances are ….. very up in the air.
    Thanks for starting this!

  390. I’m in for $5 a mention, up to $250. If it’s okay with you John, I’ll direct my money to Lambda Legal. This fine organization is, among other things, trying to bring about legalized gay marriage in all fifty states (rshd translation: helping perverts and sodomites destroy traditional marriage). For every $5 I donate, a same-sex marriage will be destroyed. Bwahahahahaha!

  391. AlanM, etc:

    Generally speaking I have no problems with substitutions, because, hey, it’s your money. I do think it’s good to keep the general themes of helping women, GLBT, people of color and sexual assault victims, however. Most people seem to be doing that.

  395. @Laura Resnick 2:27: TBH, Laura, I find it even weirder that people like our VD are capable of leading a life that must be one constant, excruciating episode of cognitive dissonance. I suppose I shouldn’t really make light of this, since it’s the sort of stuff serious mental issues are made of, but still…

  397. Rex: Of course, VD will max us out. But the point is that all our money pooled together will do waaaaay more than it would separately. My money by itself could only buy a few things but put in the hands of Planned Parenthood, and somebody is going to get an early detection breast exam, or birth control, or a prostate exam or counselling on healthy relationships.

  399. In for $1 per mention with a cap of $250.00 More if the profit sharing gods are nice this year.

  401. @ Rob Meyer: “As she was a lesbian, science fiction writer of color, She is a beautiful example of what RSHD rages about. ”

    Thanks for posting that. I didn’t know about that fund. Excellent idea for someone who wants to participate in this theme but choose their own cause to donate to. I met Octavia when we were both guests at the same con for a days about a decade ago, and she was one of the coolest people I’ve ever met/ One of the things I recall most clearly was that she was so compassionate that she could bring up awkward issues or sticky subjects without them being awkward or sticky in her handling, which is a rare gift. She also had a very warm, engaging sense of humor.

  402. Spectator: “not sure if him being a dick costing you money is quite the way to show him”

    Put me down for $50. maybe that will show him.

    Bechtloff: I don’t think passive aggressively talking about how much he’s not worth talking about really counts as “Ignoring him”

    Passive aggressive??? Passive aggressive means to pretend to be helpless, to agree to do something and then not do it, stuff like that. This is not passive aggressive.

    Put me down for another $50.

    Blackadder: the white male power base is slowly dying

    I didn’t realize this was helping kill off the white male power base to be equal with everyone else. I am now morally compelled to throw another $50 into the pot.

    Bechtloff: If John is unhappy with what this guy is saying about him he should either ignore him or attack him head on like a man.

    “like a man”? Oh my god. Fine. If this is unmanly, I’m in for another $50.

    If we donate the money in his name, he might get the tax deduction, but he’d also end up on all their mailing lists. And, really, I’m fine with that. But I’ll let you figure out how best to transfer the money.

  403. Put me in for $200. I try to donate to charity anyway, but it’s so much more fun when a thorough troll-slapping is part of the deal.

  404. Brilliant idea and I’m in for $100 as well. Have you considered making the donations in his name? That could very well be the icing on the cake.
    Apologies if that’s already been suggested. This is a really long thread and I’m a bit lazy today.

  406. Marian @6:14, It has been asked. (And it’s a super long thread, so it’s understandable you missed it.) Basically John said he suspects these fine organizations probably wouldn’t be too keen on being associated with the RSHD and so it’s probably best not to use his name on the donations.

  413. I’ll contribute $25 to Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, RAINN, and The Jackie Robinson Foundation. Also $25 to the local humane society because kittens.

  421. Lots of chairites have a spot on the form where you can fill in an “honoree.” I put that in quotes deliberately, given this particular context. Many will also let you enter contact info for same honoree, so the charity can send them a note “so-and-so donated $X in your name to us”. At least some charities will also let you be anonymous on that note to the honoree.

    I don’t know if charities include the honorees or the donors in their public, “look who gave us money” lists. If they list the donors and not the honorees, there are possibilities. Of course, I have no idea how you find out such a thing.

  424. You can judge a man by the friends he keeps. I consider the gauntlet laid down by John and his friends. I challenge Vox Day to show what kind of man he and his friends are. I do not know him or his blog, but I bet he would be hard pressed to achieve similiar results.

  425. [Adorable gibbering follow monkey wishes to stomp his foot in protest. Stomp, little follow monkey! Stomp! — JS]

  428. $20 here! I don’t even know where the money’s going but if it’s something to do with Rashad’s delightful antics, then I’m in. I have Paypal too.

  429. Put me and Paul down for $1 per mention up to $50, split between at least 2 of the charities.

    I do not envy the volunteer who does the counting. I waded through some of his blog posts to see what he’s really about, and it darkened my soul a little bit to know so many people agreed with some of his worst philosophies. Thanks to you for brightening it up again.

  431. Is anyone else a little disappointed that we got an actual Malleting above, and not another Kittening?

  433. Andrew

    No. Kittening is reserved for the most egregious polluters, and Static clearly didn’t make the grade.

    Of course this provides us with yet more fun; we get to point and laugh at the trolls who are so mediocre that they are not up to Kittening standards…

  436. Also, John cross posted with me on that one and I am sure that he’s not as nasty as I am.

    I’m just instilling performance anxiety in our visitors by pointing out that they suck so badly at being trolls that they don’t even merit Kittening….

  438. Laura and Andrew

    I’d like to adduce in evidence the monkey in the Pirates of the Caribbean. It looked pretty adorable, at the start…

  439. Am I the only one scrolling through the comments looking for the malletings? :)

    Once the total is announced at the end of the year I’ll look around for some Australian equivalents and make a donation, although I don’t know how much yet.

  441. @John Samuel
    “Am I the only one scrolling through the comments looking for the malletings?”

    Nope. Although I think some of us are also keeping an eye out for teh kittenings.

  442. Put me down for £120 to equivalent UK charities. As suggested by someone up thread, I can squirrel away a tenner a month, only sorry that I can’t do more.

  443. I didn’t realize there was a scholarship in the name of Octavia Butler. I think that would be a more than suitable place to send my contribution, seeing as it will smack multiple follow monkey gibber buttons at once. Dedicating the change jar, the contents of which will be donated at year’s end.

  444. Andrew Hackard: “I like the cut of Kat Goodwin’s jib. I’m adding a second $200 for kiva.org, because they do great work” — It’s fun because you get to pick out who you loan to, including entrepreneurs in the U.S. if you want. You can also gather together friends, family, etc., or con your employer into a sponsorship of the office and pool your cash as a lending team, which gets you a bulletin board and whatnot. But the other charities are worthy too.

    This is a group of men — and it’s not just one man — who believe that I am sub-human chattel by the sheer virtue of my existence. They do not effect me and my donation will not effect them, but it will help others and help reduce the idea of humans as chattel in the world. That’s a long term goal that goes way beyond any particular dipshit.

  445. Please add my $40 to the pledges. I sent an email to you.
    This is a great way to spike the haters!

  448. I like this idea but I think there is still room to make it even more splendidly evil. Trolls inhabit that grey space of wanting to provoke a reaction but also wanting to hide behind their mothers legs. You cant hit these trolls in their own pocket but what you can do is make sure that all the trolls little friends are aware of how your scheme is working.

    I propose that you do this again but use some of the money to erect a prominent electronic billboard as close to his house/neighborhood/place of work etc listing exactly how much money he has personally raised for the LGBT community. Or you can use it to sponsor gay pride parades in his name in his town. It is the element of taking good out of this guys hate and making him wear it on his sleeve for all to see that will really dent his armor more than anything else in my opinion.

    Con

  449. Conrad:

    Aside from the fact that that would be far more effort than I would want to invest in this dipshit, if I recall correctly he lives in Italy, which would make any of that difficult to arrange. I think what we’re doing now is sufficient to make the point.

  450. I’m in for $400, split evenly between the four.

    Furthermore: after reading RSHD’s website for far too long the other day and the truly stupid number of blog posts by respectable human beings out there rebutting his idiocy, I want to do more. I can’t go past $400, John, but I’m running an IndieGoGo campaign right now to fund the book I’m currently writing. My goal is 5k and at present I’m at just over $600.

    Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll also donate 5% of whatever I make from the campaign. That includes what I have so far. If I only make a grand, I’ll put in another $50. If I hit ten thousand dollars, $500 will go to this wonderful thing.

    It’s the best I can do, unfortunately, but I’m committed to doing it. RSHD is fucking awful, and you’re right to use his own bullshit against him. Kudos.

  452. Heading to sleep now but leaving the thread open. Trolls often come out at night; if they do please ignore them and I will Mallet them when I wake up.

  453. I’m in for $100.

    Four follow monkeys, three knuckle-draggers, two arglebargles, and a racist sexist homophobic dipshit eating CROW, in a pear tree.

  454. Put me in for a fiver per occurrence, maxing out at $500, to Australian organisations that fit the fields of activities you list above (and tip of the hat to Megpie for giving me some starters).

  455. The company I work for sponsors two scholarships. The first is for a woman majoring in one of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields, the other is for an African-American woman majoring in accounting. I’ll donate $50 to each scholarship when the drive starts in July – flat out, no counting needed.

  456. I’ve now donated my £50: £10 to Stonewall (support for gay people), £10 to Support Against Racist Incidents; £15 to Rape Crisis; and £15 to Refuge (supporting those experiencing domestic violence). I’ll have another look at the end of the year, as well.

  457. @ Tish

    The company I work for sponsors two scholarships. The first is for a woman majoring in one of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields, the other is for an African-American woman majoring in accounting.

    May I have the 411 on those, and can non-employees contribute to them? I have a lot of esteem for educational causes.

  458. One advantage to the Kitten setting is that people appear to be much less willing to engage with an odious troll because they’re too delighted by the prospect of having that troll’s input changed to something embarrassing.

  459. @sara E: Oh the kittenings are indeed special, and something I’m looking for.

    But as another poster pointed out, the ordinary malletings are worth laughing at for not being trollish enough to qualify for a kittening. :)

    Performance anxiety for trolls, gotta love it.

  460. John, this is utterly brilliant. I’m reminded of the episode of “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” where Matthew Perry’s character was bidding to be the date of the woman he loved, against who he thought was the primary rival for her affections. Since the charity auction was going to benefit an abstinence-only organization, he asked his assistant to find him an organization that actively promotes sexual promiscuity, to which he could make a matching donation to offset the icky-conservative-ridiculousness of the other donation. She came up with Loving More, a polyamory advocacy group. He ended up donating so much, they gave him a plaque and wanted him to be a parade marshall.

    Anyhoo, tangent, the point is this: were I on the board of some sort of liberal-pride parade, I would totally nominate you for parade marshall based on this fundraising effort of yours. I pledge €100 from my household, as this will finally give me the excuse I’ve been needing to seek out similarly-minded charities here in Germany (we’re expats: me from the US, my DH from Denmark).

    Also, many thanks to Dr. Bonzo, thanks to whom I’ve been singing “Narcissistic Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit” to the tune of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” since some time last night.

  461. It is a little disappointing to see so few kittenings, but I feel privileged in that, at least, I’ve seen some. I am not surprised: the quality of hate on Mr Day’s site is petulant and bilious, but overall, of a poor quality by internet standards and may not even merit a malleting.

  464. I’m in, for 25$, and I’ll find a Canadian – if possible local Montreal – organization to donate to.
    I have no idea who this other guy is and look at all the good he’s bringing out in us!

  468. I have to say, I’m a bit amazed that this thread has as few Mallet events as it does. I would have thought that something so explicitly and intentionally provocative would have led to more froth and gibber.

    Not that I want them to show up, but still.

  469. This is beyond awesome. I’m in for $100, split equally. If my temp job turns permanent, I may be able to up the amount. I was just explaining kittening to my mom last night, and she laughed and laughed (which she sorely needed), so thank you.

  471. @Tannie: they can’t yet decide if they are totally, like, above this all or if they should pretend that they don’t care. It might take them next three to seven blogposts specifically addressing this issue on multiple blogs (while pretending they don’t care at all) and several hundred comments to decide, so it will take some time to see real action.

  472. Count me in for another $200. I love the idea of making the voice of reason and fluffy kittens louder than the RSHD rhetoric that is always by nature so screamingly prominent. Thank you, @scalzi, for the inspiration. (Oh, and BTW I really enjoy your writing…)

  473. I wish I had the extra $$ to throw in the pot, but I don’t right now. I will, however, tip my hat to all of you who are kicking in and/or putting yourself through the task of watching this person’s blog for Scalzi mentions. You are all beautiful people. It’s been amazing to watch this particular fund raiser. Way more entertaining than the ones for public television! :)

  474. And the donation tally begins! Ca-CHING! Ca-CHING!

    That is to say, La Beale is yammering on his blog today about Scalzi.

    Which was predictable, of course. He is, after all, OBSESSED with John Scalzi. Can’t quit him, can’t give him up. And thus some worthy causes for women, people of color, and sexual assault victims will now benefit!

    Three cheers for La Beale’s adorable mancrush!

    Hip-hip…

  475. (PS: I’m not one of the trackers, since I nauseate easily, and I don’t intend to look again. I was just curious about how long it would take before the first tally. I had a feeling it would be only a day or two. Now I wish I had placed a bet!)

  476. >That is to say, La Beale is yammering on his blog today about Scalzi.

    Yes, I noticed that. Lots of mentions, excellent stuff. He’s also commented on Twitter: says he’s happy to help. And indeed it would seem that he is.

    John, I’ve had a look at the finances and can pledge $50 to go to Kiva. Sorry it’s not more.

  478. Thought experiment: given the realities of financial inequalities today, is this really a tactic (sans crowdsourcing) that you want to express pride about using? See: https://projects.propublica.org/pactrack/contributions/tree
    There’s a tactic afoot, to provoke so as to elicit a particular response, one that can be wielded as justification for what the tactician wanted to do all along, which is 100x worse. How we operate with freedom in that world, I do not know; we definitely need to think, hard, before speaking & acting, about how those with deep pockets could use our words & actions against us.
    (No specifics, sorry.)

  480. Think about it:

    You sure do a lot of concern trolling around these here parts. It’s also concern trolling that doesn’t actually parse into sentences that make sense.

    Once again: I don’t care how the racist, sexist, homophobic dipshit in question responds to it. At this point his entire existence for me is to serve as a trigger for donations to help those he hates. Every time he posts about me, that’s another $223 to gays, women, people of color and people who have been sexually assaulted. And hopefully soon to be more!

  482. Put me down for $250. Also, I would like to volunteer to buy some kind of celebratory beverage for whoever will have to sift through the RSHD’s filth in order to tally up what needs to be tallied for the purposes of this wonderful fundraiser. Beer’s on me, or the beverage of the heroic sifter’s choosing.

  483. This is fun; so much fun that I thought I’d like to get started now, and the Oxfam project in Rwanda helping women farmers to fight inequality and poverty pleases me and pisses off racist, sexist, homophobic dipshits.

    So, $60 has been dispatched, and I will be choosing another charity each quarter in the same spirit, for an annual total of $240.

  485. I am giggling at the (obsolete) alpha/beta/greekletterofyourchoice pop psychology being spouted over there. IIRC, it turns out wolves don’t behave like that in the wild. In at least one other species — I’m pretty sure it was elephant seals– while the alpha males are fighting it out, the other males sneak over and mate with the females. The alpha males often injure each other so severely that they don’t get to mate at all; too tired. I wish I could remember the species.

    In summary: I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard.

  487. Hey Scalzi,

    Between wanting to donate to Jay Lake and losing my job at the end of March, I’m a little light on the scratch but I’ll pledge $50 by the end of the month.

  489. I checked out his blog for the first time this morning. Hoo boy what a huge pile of crazy is happening over there. I don’t really want to waste any more of my time sorting through the gibberish or exposing myself to the insanity, but it has made me wonder – what started him on the road to obsession? Was it the straight white male post they’re blathering about his morning? Something else I didn’t stumble over in my limited reading? Nobody knows? Just curious, really.

  492. Man, go away from the Internets for a couple of days and look what happens. Count me in for $100 (I think you have my email but if not let me know and I’ll pony up).

  493. Mr. Scalzi:

    Fair enough. The good work currently being done in this small corner of the Internet is far more important than the ‘reason’ behind his idiocy anyway. Mad props to you for the brilliant idea.

  495. Guys, let’s not try to analyze him here. Dipshittery happens for all sorts of reasons; on this end, we only have to worry about the results.

  497. I’m in for a ceiling of $200. I hope you will post a reminder at the end of the year about this.

  499. alpha/beta/greekletterofyourchoice

    So I’m technically the Alpha of a small pack. 2 canines, 2 humans. I’m deferred to by the canine members as the Alpha, I don’t do much except discipline them occasionally and provide meals and guide them on expeditions and play with them. They spend some time testing to see if the other human in the pack is above them or below them. Which shows what the hell they know about actual human relations :)

    Interestingly, in dog dynamics most of them really REALLY don’t want to be the alpha. When I’m away on a business trip my oldest dog gets really unhappy and spends a lot of time sitting at doorways guarding in my place.

    I don’t really understand where people get the idea from that it’s a good thing.

    I’m in for $100 btw.

  500. 5pm Monday total, from here and in e-mail: $47,435. We could still hit $50k today, which would be groovy (of course, $47,435 is perfectly good, too).

  503. Put me down for $200, which I will donate to Women’s Refuge here in NZ in quarterly chunks, whatever VD does or doesn’t do.

  504. I’ll commit a flat $50.

    No matter if he mentions you again, John, I’m in for $50 at the end of the year. These are good charities, and taking a stand against people who spread cancerous thoughts is the right thing to do.

  505. Ok, I’m in. Up to $AUS200, $5 per incident, $100 minimum to local asylum seeker and indigenous support groups. I may even try and find some that exclusively help women. More if I get more work.

  506. $2 per incident, $100 min, $200 max to MISSSEY. Oakland-based charity that seeks to rescue children forced into prostitution.

  508. I couldn’t read it all as it became a little to much 1984 for me once you started talking about people monitoring his site.(just too many people looking for someone to do something they consider wrong in this Post Bill of Rights America)

    The jar of money is way to self serving. Comes off as just another liberal bright idea to prove he’s better then someone else.

    It is also condescending to those groups who you are (in or out of directly) proclaiming yourself a champion of.

    I’m sure he’s probably a complete moron but there are hundreds of millions of them. Luckily they are just dumb enough not to get together and form a group. as they would easily rule the world.

    If you’re a Democrat or a Republican in America with all the non-transparent but Obvious Corruption then calling someone else out is beside the point.

    The Truth is People will always believe what they want to believe. and if you believe we are all the same, then that in itself means pointing fingers is illusionary and hypocritical.

    I don’t believe that is the full truth. Its way to simplistic and complicated at the same time. But like almost anything it has roots in the truth.(Half Truth)

    Too many writers have come across as against Freedom of Speech the last few years. Which is very Scary! I know how people can reason it as valid, but pretending we are evolved enough for such thought policing is very dangerous.

    I often say Lenny Bruce won the battle but Lost the War on Free Speech!
    He won the battle for people to say what words they wanted to but lost the war for the wisdom of how people will choose to react to them. i.e. Ways that make the words mean much more & worse then the intent. A path that Demonizes and Victimizes others and one’s self.

    The Biggest Enemy is always ourselves.

  509. Quote of the (Vox) Day:

    He’s a rabbit. He’s a gamma male. His blog readership is smaller than mine. His intellectual influence is miniscule in comparison with mine. He has no original ideas; he’s little more than a parrot.

    You mad, bro?

  510. I’m in, $1 per incident, up to $100, or 0.1 Scalzi.
    I’m going to donate to local charities (in Australia):
    Fitted for Work: an organisation that helps marginalised women get back into the workforce;
    Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby (does what it says on the tin);
    Zoe Belle Gender Centre: the only transgender support organisation for Australia that I could find after a brief Google; and
    The Royal Women’s Hospital (since I can’t seem to support CASA house – the Centre Against Sexual Assault – directly).

    Hey John, perhaps it’s worth, at the end of the year, including a list of suggested charities for countries other than the US? Even just places that commenters have said they’ll support, to reduce the need for a huge-scale research mission.

  513. Also, folks: the tally at 7:20pm Monday, from pledges here and in my e-mail: $50,235.

    Fifty thousand dollars, people! You are wonderful. Thank you.