Why do people spam forums and blog comments?

Since setting up an online forum at work it has been inundated with spam either as new topics or replies to existing ones. I have stopped this by using a challenge question and answer on sign up and by blocking two of the networks they seemed to mainly come from.

I have the same problem with my own blogs. Often they get spates of spam comments. I now turn off comments on posts which are being targeted.

But why do they do this?

Well, there are two main reasons:

If they can embed a link into the post then this might help the search engine rankings of the site that is linked to. Even though a lot of these links are set to "no follow" by default people still think that ading those links will help.

If they add a post into the end of a long topic or into the end of  a long series of blog comments then everyone who is subscribed to those comments (usually everyone who has previously commented) will receive their message as an email. In other words its a back door way of sending out spam emails, but in limited quantities.

The answer to all of this is increased security. So far my question and answer challenge system is working. I had previously tried two image captcha systems and both of these had been completely ineffective. The reason for this is that there is now an industry of human captcha solvers in developing countries. If you find this hard to believe then read this article from ZDNet. And here is one of the companies doing it. There is now at least one company using automated processes to decode captchas.

I note from my own server logs quite a few referals from this site based in India where spammers can open a group of web pages simultaneously, presumably the top ones found in a google search for a particular search term.

Spoke at a local Resurgence and Ecologist discussion group

I had the pleasure of giving a short presentation last night about the work of Eco-Congregation Scotland to a local discussion group in Edinburgh organised through Resurgence and Ecologist magazine. The other speaker was from the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Science (IFEES).

It was interesting to hear how similar the Islamic position on environmental issues is to the Christian one. Although there were some differences with a greater emphasis on the example of Mohammed's own words and actions as recorded in the Koran and Hadith. Christianity tends to have more emphasis on principals derived generally from the bible rather than from the specific words or actions of Jesus.

There are Resurgence and Ecology groups in a number of places around the UK.

Edinburgh International Science Festival

Just a note that I am organising an event on faith, values and behaviour change for Eco-Congregation Scotland at the Edinburgh International Science festival.

You will find a press release here (PDF): http://gh.cm/YQjXeB

Why is the voluntary sector not flourishing?

This might be controversial, but in spite of all the mutual back slapping it is clear that the voluntary sector has not moved on much in the past ten years. Here are some of the reasons that I think are behind this:

- Reliance on local authority grants and the way this has turned charities from being imaginative and dynamic into the local authority mind set of stagnation and risk aversion.

- Good staff being attracted into private sector where there skills are more welcome.

- Most charities having boards made up of people who are not involved in the work and who have little vested interest in it developing new ideas.

- General lack of confidence and self belief amongst senior managers and chief executives.

What do you think?

A lesson in poor direct marketing.

I received a letter this morning from a medium sized cancer charity which was trying to get me to run a fundraising event for them. It was a surprisingly poor effort. Here are a number of its shortcomings:

• It was addressed "Dear Friend" and not to a named individual.
• It was addressed to the name of the organisation I work for and we have no relationship with the charity sending it.
• It started by talking about their new building.
• It did not explain how this event would work or how I would organise it.
• There was no explanation of the difference their services make to people.
• In particular there were no stories of real people that their services have helped.
• The PS at the end of the letter was truncated so I don't know what it said.

With the current cost of postage this must have been an expensive mailing to send out.

My tip for anyone doing direct marketing is to get your material read by someone outside the organisation and get them to write down what they think it is saying. The results might surprise you!