I watch things like the growth of sizes of databases on sites I run. It’s just a peculiar fascination of mine. One I’ve always watched with interest is the size of the database powering the Rumor Forum. It’s always been large—it’s been years since we’ve been below 100 MB!—but I’ve noticed lately that it’s been growing at a faster rate. This surprised me: changes in the fundamental structure of the database occurred when we moved from phpBB v2 to SMF v1 actually shrunk the size of the database by about 25%. Since the switch about a year ago, our posting volume hasn’t increased very much, certainly not enough to keep up with the growth of the database. I realized why this morning: an improved quoting tool [that is, one that auto-generates a quotation waterfall on the post selected] encouraged more people to use the function, and that function means that we’re generally posting longer messages because the tool works with the user, rather than against them.

Better tools for creating and organizing data are generally going to beget more data. I’ve seen it in Weblogging—as soon as I first started using b2, I wanted to write more—and I’ve seen it in Web forums. Shoot, with better cameras and audio field recording equipment, I generate more data, too … I unfortunately don’t generate more time to sift through it all.