not suggesting that HN should copy other sites out there... but twitter and the like have a "report as spam" feature. this, in conjunction with a min karma req

not suggesting that HN should copy other sites out there... but twitter and the like have a "report as spam" feature. this, in conjunction with a min karma requirement, could possibly be a useful tool to enact more drastic measures towards combatting spam on the HN site. no idea what form this would take. enough "report as spam" votes by high-level users might ban the user directly, or maybe just generate an email to some administrative review process that would make the final decision. i, too, have noticed a recent surge RMS posts and, though i'm a newcomer to the site myself, find them rather annoying as well. of course there are probably RMS posts being generated by well-intentioned HN readers who aspire to be an active part of the community but lack a firm history of contributions at the time they make them. it seems like there are also people who try to game the system looking for a cheap, but highly visible, promotion. even if that's not the case, asking the community to review one's ideas before an individual has made any significant contributions to the community seems contrary to the notion of "karma". for what it's worth, i'll do my part to not clog up the feed with premature/shameless RMS posts :D