Regarding spam, I posted earlier that complaining to Google is futile in
trying to shut down spammers, since there is a threshold number of
complaints that must be submitted before Google will take such action.

I'm proposing that we might start a project here to see if we can raise
enough support within this group to submit enough complaints to see an
effect (i.e., see the spammers shut down). To that end, I'd like to take
a poll here to see how many people would be willing to do this--report
spam messages in this newsgroup to Google. Please reply to this thread.

My guess is that it would require at least 20 or so complaints about a
particular spammer before they (Google) seriously considered taking
action. I'm willing to be convinced that this number is actually higher
or lower; it's just my seat-of-the-pants guess.

So once we agree on what this threshold number might be, my suggestion
is that we target the spammers carefully. Instead of going after all of
them, pick one--say, the worst current one--and target that particular
one. Then we can see if our complaints had any effect.

Remember, this will only work if we can muster that minimum number of
people willing to complain. I'm ready to do so if enough of us "sign
up". So let's hear from y'all.

If someone wants to lead this effort, please speak up. I actually don't
want to be that leader ...


--
Made From Pears: Pretty good chance that the product is at least
mostly pears.
Made With Pears: Pretty good chance that pears will be detectable in
the product.
Contains Pears: One pear seed per multiple tons of product.

(with apologies to Dorothy L. Sayers)