It's not much of a problem when you use a good news provider,
preferrably in combination with a good news reader. The provider I use
(GigaNews) is apparently a lot worse than yours, but the amount of spam
I get is still quite managable. But take a look at this:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.javascript/topics
That's an unmitigated catastrophe. For better or worse, this page is
usually the first contact people have with the group. In addition, some
of the group's readers don't have the option of using a real newsfeed
(for example, due to blocked ports at work). So Google provides a free
web front-end (which is good), but at the same time allows random people
to post the most blatant spam you can imagine (not so good). For crying
out loud, how can an automated system not detect a message with a
subject like "Buy Cialis online" as spam?
Most of the spam I get on Usenet is automatically marked as read and
displayed in #fdfdfd on white, so it won't distract from the real
messages. But this is 2011 - I should _not_ need to create filters for
"Viagra", "Prada", "Gucci", "Tramadol", etc. Google have a very
effective spam detetion system in Google Mail - I'm using a gmail.com
address here, and I've never had a single spam mail delivered to me
through this address. Why they can't implement something similar for
their "Google Groups"... I have no idea. I tried Hanlon's Razor, but I
have to admit, I'm having a hard time believing in it anymore.
Btw, I wonder how many people are going to see this message. I used a
lot of forbidden trigger words