Dop
The whole internet is full of idiots; the extent to which you get them in Usenet depends on the quality of the general contributors in a given newsgroup. Some newsgroups are excellent.
Regards spam, most ISPs filter out 99% of usenet spam - it's easy to do so in an automated fashion.
Also Usenet is free so if you've got a fast connection you get the full benefit. This server is probably fast enough (any current-model PC is going to be fast enough) but I would guess is running on a 64k line
