Actually, all the Mac traffic has moved to
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.mac.office.word. What we're
stuck trying to figure out is whether Word 98 = Word 97 (in which custom
colors weren't possible) or = Word 2000, in which they were.
My guess is that, if you see just 16 "colors" in the Shading dialog (instead
of 64 colors and shades of gray) and no button for "More Colors...," then
there are no more.