Great post that really covered a lot. While this is a pretty serious topic, I enjoyed reading the bit about

I, but a lowly serf, posting signs, and shouting to the castle walls that bandits 
were pillaging the fields of grain. 

I really laughed. As a "minnow" that is an absolute perfect way of describing our efforts to try to stop the spam posts. He mentions that it's only one cent, but in reality, it's not one sent. It's one hundredth of an SBD. If 1 SBD is at $13 then it's giving away 13 cents every 5 minutes to spam bots. Makes for a decent automatic dollar at the end of the day.

While "flag" brigades seem to be discouraged, I think it should be encouraged for instances like this. Problem is, how effective is flagging one post 100 times by 100 whales if the next 100 are going to go unflagged?