I see where you're coming from, and you're right, in a sense. What we have is something like 10x more good stuff, and 1000x more rubbish. Whether this should b

I see where you're coming from, and you're right, in a sense. What we have is something like 10x more good stuff, and 1000x more rubbish. Whether this should be described as degradation depends on what your idea of quality is... There are more and better gems to be found, but we've to sift through a lot more crap to get to them. I think the most I'm comfortable saying is that the nature of discourse is different, and the AVERAGE quality is lower, but if we adjust our own behavior, we can reap the benefits and suffer less of the consequences. Re: Hierarchical database, I'm totally with you. I've constantly been frustrated at how it feels like the best writing is never effectively, meaningfully aggregated.