I remember everything1. I remember how surreal and weird and amazing and beautiful it was. It was one giant collective train of thought. One click, and you're somewhere informative, another and you're at a humorous anecdote, another and you're at a very zen one-liner node, another and you're in a maze of nodes adventure, another and you're at some weirdo's rambling, and on and on...
Somewhere along the line, the powers that be decided that they wanted to start cutting the fat, and making everything2 into a reliable reference and source of information.
HAH.
Everything2 will never be the reference of the ages or any such crap. Wikipedia does everything everything2 is trying to do, and does it so much better and with much much less drama. Everything worked -- i mean it really found its niche -- when it was a giant sprawling train of thought. A true forum for self-expression. But now, through the power of unaccountable deletion and moderation, all the interesting and strange and meta content is gone. What's left over is about 10% as useful as stuff that's readily added to wikipedia, and about 5% as interesting as the stuff that used to be noded before deletion became commonplace.
Yeah. I officially stopped noding several years ago. About 60% of my nodes were deleted -- and I never got *one* explanation as to why. When I found Wikipedia, I realized that if everything2 keeps trying to be a "reference" instead of a place for individual expression, it's going to die a long, slow death. And it makes me sad, because everything1 had so much potential.
Oh well. Enjoy your sinking ship while it lasts, kids.
UPDATE: Pseudo_Intellectual said it all better than I could ever have. e2 is already dead.