The problem with the idea of "an internet on which the best answers to the majority of our queries come not from the vast, increasingly noisy expanses of the wo

The problem with the idea of "an internet on which the best answers to the majority of our queries come not from the vast, increasingly noisy expanses of the world-wide-web but from the concentrated knowledge and experience of its most articulate experts" doesn't exist on any sort of large scale. A site that gets you in conversation with intelligent insiders and hooks them in with upvotes used to be called Reddit. We see what happens to that on a large scale (which, in Quora's case, doesn't even seem to be in the cards). Google and Wikipedia work because they don't limit who has a voice (initially, of course). They gather every contribution, and then make a decision. That way they can be both more comprehensive and often better sources of information than some guy who has a bit of cachet in a community.