Joe wrote:

And all of this tripe has what to do with home repair?

Joe - you're right. This has nothing to do with home repair.

When I come across a thread in a newsgroup that I want to essentially
"disappear" from my screen every time I access the group, I will
right-click on any post within that thread and select "ignore thread".
They will all immediately change from BOLD to un-bold to make them less
visually distinct so that I can more easily identify new posts from
other threads that I may want to read, and every time I access the
newsgroup in the future, those posts will automatically "un-bold"
themselves. I can do this because I'm using an actual usenet client
(Netscape Communicator).

I realize that you are using Google Groups - which nobody should have to
be tortured with as a way to experience usenet. So you perhaps don't
have an easy way to make these posts disappear.

But I know - even if using a proper usenet client makes the off-topic
posts more tolerable, it doesn't excuse their existance....

I will, shall we say - tone it down?