@noracodes This was a wonderful read. Thank you. I was aware of most of it, but still there were a couple of eye-openers. Having been "online" since 1996 (and I know this still makes me a young 'un in the eyes of some), it's a bit sad and exasperating to see the same things happen over and over again in different technical guises: first it was the IRC network wars (and channel wars), then the rise of e-mail spam and various blocking mechanisms (and some people's refusal to use them), then web forums, blogs, lately it is one "social network" (and I use that term very widely, with apologies for some of its negative connotations) after another... At first people don't think about the social aspects, then they're taken aback at the first problems, then some leave, some quarrel, others hastily put up filters, then some malicious actor finds a way around the filters, users leave in disgust and exasperation, and years later, an archipelago forms... sometimes much too late.