I was reading the editorial at the back of the IEEE Spectrum mag where
they decrie the inevitable misuse of any commonly owned resource and
used e-mail as an example. This can be extended to news groups as
well. People simply cannot resist abusing them (am I abusing this
one). The real solution that may never be used until it is too late
will be having to pay for use of these resources. E-mail that cost 1
cent/message would nearly eliminate spam and a pay for post system
would also nearly eliminate trolls.
Another option is for the service provider to minimize the number of
posts/day from any one person which would make many people more careful
in what they post. Currently, Google does this but it seems the
minimum is fairly high and must reset every few hours. This would not
eliminate posters who use multiple identities but i think that is a
small problem