If you run a blog or forum you need to keep a sharp eye on comments and contributions. Unfortunately spammers are out there, often using scripts to fill your public online spaces with their rubbish.

Some spams are totally obvious, easy to block and filter so they never make it to public view. But even very experienced bloggers sometimes wonder about comments: Is this a spam, or is it genuine?.

Lorelle VanFossen has some clues to help you sort them out:

… Examples include:

• I read similar article also named <Post Title Here>, and it was completely different. Personally, I agree with you more, because this article makes a little bit more sense for me
• This is exactly what I expected to find out after reading the title <Post Title Here>. Thanks for informative article.
• Hey! Nice blog posting about <Post Title Here>. I would have to agree with you on this one. I am going to look more into it. This Thursday I have time.
• Superb write up talking about <Post Title Here>. Thoroughly love your blog.
• [many examples snipped]

Yes, these are all blog comment spam trying to fool you.

… If you find you have a comment that is suspicious, you have the right to delete it or edit it. By editing the blog comment, you can delete any links within it, even from within the comment form’s URL/address. You can change the commenter’s name, too, if the name words are too spammy. Blogs are content and you have the right to edit your blog comments and the information that appears on your blog.

[Via Lorelle on WordPress: Comment Spam Alert: I Read a Similar Article.]

Lorelle has a great deal more extremely useful information, both in this post, and in the many others she lists at the end of her post.

If you run a blog or forum for your organisation, or in fact any site where the public are able to leave comments or add material, visit Lorelle’s post and study what she has to say.

Or, go one better, and add Lorelle’s RSS feed to your feed reader.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

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Beth Kanter’s post about her process for raising funds as part of the America’s Giving Challenge tells the story of Pharoth, an orphan in Cambodia. The story reinforces the all-important point that Beth makes:

…all nonprofits need to use stories as part of their communications and fundraising.  Research and studies have shown that donors are more likely to give if they are hear a story about one person who has been helped by the charity versus numbers and statistics. I now have a collection of stories about the Sharing Foundation.

[Via BlogHer - Social change, Non-profits & NGOs: Stories, Conversations, and Supportive Network are Key for Social Fundraising.]

It’s easy to think of charities who use the story technique, who ask for a dollar a day for a named person, for example. But there are also still many organisations who would benefit from working a little harder on putting stories to statistics.

Stories engage our human hearts and allow us to feel that the ‘problem’ is manageable. We can’t help hundreds, or thousands or millions who need a particular service, but we do feel able to improve the life of Josephine or Johnny.

What are the stories in your organisation?

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Britt Bravo provides 10 useful and specific tips for getting bloggers to help you spread the word about your cause or issue in 10 Tips for Asking Bloggers to Write About Your Cause:

if you want to do outreach to bloggers about an issue you care about, here are a few tips

These Tips will cost you time and energy — you need to work harder than just flinging out a press release to anyone with an email address. But the same could be said about any avenue for publicity. My favourite Tip:

Bonus tip: If they write about your cause, thank them and link back to them!

The post also contains some useful links to what others have done.

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