Well, for a spam to be reaped, it needs to have a reputation < 0, so somebody needs to downvote it. I usually downvote a node before voting "reap". -5 for an accidental duplicate costs just enough XP (likely 1 or 2) to make one slightly more careful next time. :)

(colors darkly!) I guess I misunderstood the requirement for - - votes as a guideline whose applicability was subject to a janitor's discretion.

Still, that raises a question, in my feeble brain: NTC says:

Janitors only honor a consideration when it is consistent with site policy and doesn't conflict with their own judgement, regardless of how many 'edit' votes it has. When the appropriateness of a consideration is less clear, patience is preferred over haste.

...which led this non-janitor to believe janitors have some discretion about the rule you cite.

And if I misunderstood the rule, does that not mean the (potential) loss of XP for an actual service is -- in your earlier (and well-considered) phrase, "noise that should be avoided?"

janitors can't reap (they can vote for or against reaping just like anybody else of sufficient level). So, no, their judgement doesn't have any special impact on the rules that control when a node is reaped. For reaping, the judgement comes into play when gods decide whether to unreap nodes that got reaped against site policy.

- tye        

I quite agree with your changes (++ by the way)) and view downvoting spam, rather than considering it, to be misguided.

Surely it doesn't take being level 9 and above to consider spam - and below that, all a well-intentioned PMer can do is downvote.

Edit: Thanks to planetscape for the pointer at typoing "downvote"! Oops.